


Follow Me Through

by KTag12542



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Action/Adventure, And a lot of yelling at each other, Canon Divergence - Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Gen, Slow burn team dynamics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-27
Updated: 2018-08-14
Packaged: 2018-08-18 05:09:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 50
Words: 373,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8150170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KTag12542/pseuds/KTag12542
Summary: It's been barely two weeks since the Sokovia Accords disaster.  Everyone is still reeling from the collapse of the Avengers.
So of course that's when a new crisis hits.
An interdimensional portal is appearing at twenty-four hour intervals and abducting anyone in its path.  No one knows who's responsible, or what's waiting on the other side.  Can the team overcome their differences in time to bring everyone safely home?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This plot arrived fully formed in my head not long after the last time I saw CA:CW. Now I'm trying to write it all down. Updates planned every two weeks. Hope you enjoy!

When the portal opened for the first time, hardly anyone noticed.

Weather satellites over the Pacific Northwest recorded a cluster of sudden, unseasonal low-pressure zones, which were immediately followed by vicious thunderstorms and other weather events across the region. The next morning, six hikers were reported missing from Mt. Hood, Oregon. It was presumed that they had been victims of the severe weather. A search was organized immediately.

When the portal opened for the second time, it stole ninety people from the middle of downtown Denver, Colorado, and the world came face to face with its newest problem.

 

* * *

 

 "You're calling in Jane Foster, right?" Tony stared at the little light on the office phone as though he could transmit some modicum of collaborative good will into the man on the other end of the line. "Because I can't be sure without the proper monitoring equipment, but the electromagnetic output was very similar to—"

"Who I call in is none of your concern, Stark," Secretary Ross retorted, and no, apparently there was no collaboration to be had today. "The situation is being handled by the appropriate authorities. That's all you need to know."

"Fine, but the two events — you did pick up on Oregon, right? — the two events occurred just twenty-four hours apart, which leaves us—"

"Did you really call me to teach me how to tell time?"

Tony paused. Balled up his fist. Did _not_ hit anything. "No. Sir. Obviously not. I called to—" _smile, grit my teeth, show my belly, and_ "—offer my help to the scientific team that's analyzing the phenomenon."

The phone made a scoffing noise. "Teams with you on them have this unfortunate habit of imploding."

"Ross—"

"This country is _under_ _attack_. Believe it or not, I have more important things on my agenda than babysitting you. If we encounter a situation in which Iron Man could serve a purpose, I know where to find you. In the meantime, stay out of the way."

The line went dead. Tony stabbed the disconnect button hard enough to send the phone skidding backward.

From the office doorway, Rhodey said, "That went well."

"Guess I'm still on his shit list," Tony said. When he was sure his expression could be trusted, he spun in the chair and gave a one-shouldered shrug. "Doesn't matter. He'll get Foster and Selvig — they're the only ones with any kind of working theory on wormholes — and they'll find a way to control the phenomenon. Probably based on the tech they developed for Greenwich. Problem solved." Then he quickly added, "How're the legs? Noticing the new gyros?"

Rhodey had one hand on the door frame for stability. "Definitely noticing," he said. "I've got more control coming around corners."

Tony nodded. "Good."

And it was. Obviously. Tony was still playing catch-up on human biomechanics, and the delicate shifts in weight and balance required for a person to change directions while walking had turned into an unexpected design challenge. The current version was nowhere close to finished — he had extensive hardware and software upgrades still in the works — but at least the basic functionality was there.

And yet.

Rhodes moved at about a quarter of his former walking pace. He never took a step without at least one hand braced against a wall or gripping a handhold. He still fell multiple times a day.

_It's getting better_ , Tony reminded himself yet again, reciting the words like a litany. _The tech is still in its infancy, and there's always going to be a learning curve, no matter how good the prosthesis_.

Rhodey's expression grew more serious. "You know, at some point—"

"Nope," Tony said flatly, and spun back to face the desk.

"Look, I don't want to have this conversation either, but the brass are pressuring me to send them a list."

"Are you kidding me? It's been two weeks!" Tony spun back again, which left him slightly dizzy and with the suspicion that his dramatic gesture was losing its punch.

"I know that," Rhodey said, "but the rest of the world doesn't get put on hold because the Avengers are having personnel problems."

" _Personnel problems_?"

"There are some good people on that list, Tony." Rhodey took a few careful steps into the room, one hand sticking to the wall. "Before I send in my final recommendations, I'd like to introduce them to you, get your impressions."

"Oh, well, let me save you some time. My impression is: no."

Rhodey sighed heavily and hung his head, although Tony could also see the smile that he was trying to hide. "Look, don't think I don't appreciate what you're doing here, but sooner or later we're going to have to face the reality of the situation."

Yeah, that didn't sound likely. "I loaned the suit to _you—_ "

"Oh, it's a _loan_ now?"

"—and if you retire, War Machine retires. End of story." Walking away from an argument felt like cheating, but desperate times and all that. He clapped Rhodey on the shoulder as he passed. "You keep practicing your pirouettes. I'll be in the workshop."

 

* * *

 

"Sam."

Jolting awake from a deep sleep never failed to suck. Sam flailed his way out from beneath the covers, and found a super soldier standing in his doorway.

"Steve. What time is it?"

"Early," he said. "Sorry. But I just got a text from Nat. There's something on the news that you need to see."

As a few more sections of his brain woke up, Sam realized that Steve was in full Captain America mode: somber, upright, locked down. Whatever this was, it was going to be bad.

The lights in the living room were on low, thank God. The TV was playing an American news network. At the moment, it was showing the mother of all downpours falling on the mother of all traffic jams in the streets of — he squinted to find a caption — Denver, Colorado. The sound was turned down; Sam caught words like "unexplained" and "missing" and "panic".

Then the broadcast switched to a video that had obviously been taken by someone's cell phone. It showed a busy downtown intersection — Denver again, he assumed. Faintly, he could hear cars honking and people crying out.

The cameraperson was standing between two parked cars on the side of the road. Beside them, normal foot traffic on the sidewalk was being overtaken by a wall of pedestrians, all running from something unknown.

Then the camera angled left, and Sam saw it.

It was circular. The size was difficult to judge, what with the distance and the shaky footage, but he guessed that it was at least thirty feet in diameter. The perimeter flickered and flashed with electricity, but the interior was the deepest black. It hung vertically in the air, suspended by nothing, about two blocks away.

Sam felt a chill crawl down his spine. The thing was… _wrong_. It was impossible in a blatant and aggressive way. An act of violence against reality.

And it was on the move. The circle vanished for a second when it reached the corner of a building, then emerged on the other side like nothing had happened. It didn't drift or swerve. It didn't have a target. It simply advanced.

The streets quickly jammed. People jumped out of their cars and tried to flee on foot, but the circle was faster. It overtook a cluster of pedestrians, and they vanished into the black.

The video cut out.

"This happened in Denver about an hour ago," Steve said. "They're saying it was some kind of interdimensional portal."

Sam could cope with the super soldiers and the helicarriers and the Iron Man armor. He'd come around on the purple vibranium dude and the lady who could manipulate matter by thinking about it. He was basically over the spider kid and the ant guy, and he was making his peace with the king who sometimes dressed like a cat. The list of shit that he was equipped to handle was pretty damned long, in fact.

Portals were not on the list.

"An interdimensional portal," he repeated, trying not to sound too incredulous. "Do they have any idea what's on the other side? The people who went through, are they…?"

Steve shook his head. "We don't know," he said quietly.

"Shit." He scrubbed his face with his hands and tried to form a coherent thought. "Is this another New York situation? Are we being invaded?"

"Unknown," Steve said. "There are no reports of anything coming through from the other side. But at least ninety people were taken in Denver, and there are speculations that it stole six hikers from a national park in Oregon twenty-four hours earlier."

Sam turned to stare at Steve. "This happened more than once?"

"The Oregon incident happened in an isolated area," Steve said. "There were no witnesses — at least, none who made it out. But based on satellite data, they think it was the same phenomenon."

A hundred people gone in the space of twenty-four hours. Maybe stranded, maybe worse. It beggared belief. The portal had traveled from Oregon to Colorado in a day. It passed through concrete like it was nothing. It had appeared twice so far, and there was every reason to believe that would be back.

The entire country was going to panic.

"I'm going to request a meeting with T'Challa as soon as possible," Steve said. "If nothing else, maybe he'll be willing to send some technical advisors from Wakanda. We need a way to control this thing before it happens again."

"I'll bet the man has more urgent meetings on the books today," Sam warned.

"I know. But I have to try."

"And is that all you're going to talk to him about? Technical advisors?"

Steve's eyes hadn't budged from the TV screen. "If there's any chance of bringing those people back… if a rescue mission is planned, don't you think it should be us?"

"Sure I do," Sam said. "But for one thing, we're here and not there, and for another, there is no more _us_."

It was true. The Avengers were gone. After the Raft, Clint had said thanks but no thanks to the offer of sanctuary in Wakanda, and instead had asked to be quietly dropped off on any empty piece of coastline in the continental US. The unspoken assumption, later confirmed, was that he was planning to meet up with Natasha. T'Challa had authorized this, then had the remaining four of them brought back to the Wakandan capital, where he had set about making it very clear — politely but firmly, and sometimes not so politely — that he had no intention of supporting an Avengers Initiative 2.0.

"I am granting you refuge in Wakanda because the punishment awaiting you is in violation of basic human rights," he'd said to them once. "My people are caring for Barnes as we have agreed. But I and my government are not here for your convenience, and I will not permit you to use Wakandan resources to violate other countries' borders."

Steve had gone all square-jawed and stubborn, and stayed that way for days. Sam had imagined a few choice comebacks concerning a certain attempted murder in Bucharest. But that line of thinking wasn't productive, and once the initial sting had worn off, he'd worked on letting it go. T'Challa had gone way out on a limb by giving them all a place to live, unsupervised, in the capital city. They had an obligation to be polite guests.

That reasoning had lasted him for about ten days of quiet living. It was on the brink of falling apart completely in the face of a crisis.

Steve sighed, and rubbed the back of his neck. "I should be doing _something_ ," he said.

"Let's wait until the experts learn more about what this thing is and where it comes from," Sam said. "We don't even know if a rescue op is feasible yet. Don't put the cart before the horse."

"Yeah," said Steve, unconvincingly.

Sam took a seat at one end of the couch and returned his attention to the news. They'd switched from footage of the portal to a panel of broadcasters and analysts. None of them knew anything — it was clear that no one knew anything yet — so they were forced to cover the same few talking points again and again: no warning, at least ninety people missing, the same thing now believed to have happened in Oregon twenty-four hours prior. Practically the entire city was gridlocked because of people trying to flee. The President had issued a statement offering condolences and promising action.

It felt like the words were flowing over him and not really sinking in. New York should have been a once-in-a-lifetime event — no, make that a _never_ -in-a-lifetime event — but here he was, watching something like it happen all over again. What kind of force could punch a hole in reality and suck people out? How did any of them have a hope of stopping it?

Sam gave his head a quick shake and told himself firmly to pull it together. His words to Steve had been so much reflex —  _Steve, would you consider looking before you leap_ this _time? —_  but they'd also been correct. It had been barely an hour since the event: of course there were unknowns. But the top minds on the planet would be working the problem — he happened to know a few personally — and they wouldn't be stuck in the dark for long.

Uncertainty bred fear. Information generated solutions.

"What did Nat say?" Sam asked when they cut to a commercial.

"Not much," Steve said. "The government will put together some kind of response team. She and Clint are going to try and keep an eye on it."

"Risky."

"They know what they're doing."

After issuing a warning about disturbing content, the broadcast ran the footage of the portal again. It flew down the street, as malevolent as ever, swallowing its victims whole.

Sam desperately hoped that he wasn't witnessing those people's deaths.

He couldn't kid himself. He already knew how this was going to play out. If they received any indications that the other side was survivable — and maybe even if they didn't — then Steve would want to go. That was what he did: he jumped in. (Or out, or through, or off.) And if there was any chance at all of effecting a rescue, then Sam wanted to be part of it as well. There would be obstacles — not least of which was getting T'Challa onboard — and there would be risks, but he'd take those battles over hopelessness any day.

_Hang on, folks. Help is coming_.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gosh, people are reading. That's exciting! Hello, and thanks for the kudos!

Tony stepped into his workshop and clapped his hands. "FRIDAY, we are going to have a little chat about Denver, Colorado."

"Collating data," FRIDAY responded.

He was staying out of it. His orders were to stay out of it, and that was what he was doing. He wasn't setting one foot outside the door without authorization.

But that didn't mean he couldn't _look_.

Right now, he knew nothing, which meant that he could start anywhere and make progress. There was some serious theoretical work to be done, and he needed to analyze the satellite readings more carefully. First, though, he wanted to take a closer look at the scene.

The nightmare scenario, which the talking heads on the television were all delicately talking around, was that the portal opened… nowhere. Empty space.

(There was precedent. He wasn't thinking about it.)

But if the portal had opened into vacuum, then the pressure differential would have — as it were — sucked. The one in… the other one had been too far above street level for anyone to notice. This one, running along the ground as it had, would have been actively and obviously pulling in debris. It hadn't, therefore no vacuum.

Opening under water: same, only in the other direction. Extreme heat or cold: people close by would have noticed. Toxins: same (probably). He was a bit shaky when it came to the other side opening into a rock face, or a mile above ground, but come on — this side had been clever enough to find not only a major city, but that major city's street level. That demonstrated some manner of targeting protocols at work, which meant that the other side probably had them as well.

No, Tony was convinced that the abductees were still alive. Best he could figure, that belief was at least 80% evidence-based, and only about 20% wishful thinking. Maybe there were additional clues in the footage that would shore up the percentage even more.

"How much video do we have from the scene?" he asked.

"Seven clips have been uploaded to Youtube so far, boss."

"Enough to put together a 3D composite?"

"Barely," FRIDAY warned.

"Doesn't have to be pretty. Just give me a basic wireframe rendering of whatever you've got."

After a few seconds' pause, the workshop was overlaid with the outline of a crowded Denver street corner. Tony stepped forward slowly, passing through the network of blue lines that sketched a pedestrian mid-stride.

"Run it," he said.

The figures sprang into motion. Tony stood still as they flowed past him. There was no sound, but he could sense the panic even so. People were jostling each other, tripping and nearly falling, sometimes turning to look over one shoulder before redoubling their pace.

And behind them, moving faster than anyone could hope to run…

In the rendering, it was nothing but a blue arc hovering in the air. Even so, Tony shuddered and said, "FRIDAY, remove the portal." It vanished.

The simulation lasted less than a minute, then looped back to the beginning and ran again.

Tony hadn't been looking for anything specific, but he knew when he'd found it. "What's this?" he asked, and pointed to a pocket of lines, about head-height, that stubbornly held their ground while everything around them reenacted their flight for the third time.

"Unknown, boss," said FRIDAY. "The video quality is too poor for an accurate identification."

"Focus on this area," said Tony. "Put in the original color and as much texture as you can."

The loop restarted, and this time the figure closest to Tony was identifiably a middle-aged businessman in a grey suit. He ran past, and as he did, something behind him briefly came into view. It was black, or maybe dark blue, with a patch of something lighter hanging beneath it. It was only visible for a couple of seconds before the crowd blocked it again.

"Back up five seconds and freeze it."

Black hovering oblong thing with a lighter-colored thing. It didn't look like anything in particular, and yet there was something oddly familiar about it. Tony came up beside it. Considered.

Stood beneath it, and reached up to hold the brim of an imaginary ballcap, shielding his face with his hand.

His camera-shy friend was taller than him by a few inches, but otherwise Tony could slot himself into the posture exactly.

"FRIDAY, where's the portal?"

"Less than three meters behind your position, boss."

"Well. Hold onto your hat."

He stepped clear of the simulation. "So I'm more worried about hiding my face than outrunning the giant tear in the fabric of reality that's about to swallow me whole. Interesting. What have we got of this area before the portal shows up?"

"No data available," said FRIDAY. "All security cameras in the area malfunctioned five minutes before the phenomenon appeared."

Tony looked up quickly. "They did what now?"

"Reports speculate that it was a consequence of the electrical disturbance that accompanied the portal."

He rolled his eyes. "Right, because electrical disturbances are amazingly selective that way." He studied the holographic ghost of a hat. "Somebody knew this was going to happen."

More than that, the somebody in question had gone to a lot of trouble to put themselves in the path of the portal without letting anyone else see them do it, which was a very interesting combination of objectives. Why jump in unless you knew something about the other side? And why hide your face unless you thought you were coming back?

There had been no calls for evacuation, but neither had there been blocked streets or other attempts to keep people corralled. So Black Hat hadn't cared, one way or the other, about other people getting taken — at least, that was one possible interpretation.

So… portal groupie? That was ridiculous. Stranded alien pulling an ET? Maybe, but something about it didn't sit right.

He backed up further and paced a circle around the scene. Someone knew about the portal, put themselves in front of it, but took no other action. Why?

"Twenty-four hours between events." Tony narrowed his eyes at Black Hat. "You're tracking the portals, but your tech is… imprecise, it's a prototype. You don't get the exact location until just before the event. Which means you can't send out a warning in advance, because if you get it wrong, you could be putting more people in its path."

He tried to imagine himself in that position — a challenge, since obviously he'd be able to get a more accurate read on the portal's projected position, but whatever, suspension of disbelief. "You can't stop people from being taken," he said, some grudging respect creeping into his tone, "so instead you go with them."

It was, Tony had to admit, a hell of a leap to make from a few pixels on a crappy cell phone video. He was _right_ , he was _sure_ … but he needed confirmation.

"FRIDAY, any abandoned cars in the vicinity of the Denver portal that haven't been linked to the official missing list?"

"Negative, boss."

So Tony's new friend had a driver who was still out there. "Pull traffic cam footage from the major highways in and out of Denver. Look for cars that came in up to an hour before the portal, and then left immediately after."

His AI sounded dismayed. "Denver's a parking lot, boss. Everyone's trying to leave."

"Then keep an eye on it, and match the incoming list against the ones who make it out of the state."

"That's still a lot of cars."

Tony glared at her speaker. "I'm sorry, am I keeping you from something?"

"Search program running," FRIDAY said crisply.

Better.

Tony shut down the simulation with a swipe of his hand. He didn't need to scrounge for clues anymore. Someone out there _knew_ , and he was going to find them.

In the meantime, he had weather and Stark Industries satellite data, and he had the Foster papers. Time to get to work.

 

* * *

 

To Steve's surprise, T'Challa's scheduler replied to him promptly with an offer of a half-hour appointment at 11am. Steve presented himself at the north wing of the royal palace as instructed, and was led to a small conference room in the section of the building that was apparently used for day-to-day business and informal audiences. A member of the Dora Milaje — silent and imposing, as all of them were — stood guard outside the door.

"Please wait here," his guide said. "King T'Challa will arrive presently." The man gave a perfunctory nod and departed without waiting for a reply.

"Thank you," Steve said anyway. "Ma'am," he added politely to the bodyguard. She ignored him.

Well. The room, at least, was comfortable and inviting. Sunlight streamed in from the tall picture windows on the right-hand wall. From having seen the outside of the building, Steve knew that the glass was one-way. The walls were painted in shades of tan, with dark brown accents that matched the furniture. The conference table was oval and seated ten. Some extra chairs and small tables had been placed along the walls, perhaps for support staff or note takers.

A painting hung on the wall to Steve's left. Abstracts weren't his favorite style, but he found himself studying this one closely. The color scheme complimented the room: browns and golds, with the occasional splash of deep red. Harmonious colors. And yet something about the interplay between the lines and shapes left him with a sense of urgency and unease, like there was some critical task that he'd forgotten.

"It depicts an event from early in my father's reign," T'Challa said, and Steve nearly jumped a foot. "To the south are two neighboring regions that have historically been enemies. A foolish mistake on one side quickly escalated until both factions had taken up arms. Some recommended subduing them all by force. Instead, my father visited both sides, alone, and eventually negotiated a truce."

Steve tried to square the story with the sensation he'd gotten. Maybe the urgency wasn't due to something overlooked, but instead reflected the consequences of failure.

It also occurred to him that if T'Chaka had been the Black Panther at the time, then traveling alone to a scene of unrest didn't carry quite the same risks as it would have if, say, the President of the United States had done it. He wondered if having a super-powered monarch made affairs of state easier or harder to manage.

None of that seemed entirely appropriate to discuss with T'Challa, however. "He sounds like a wise king," Steve said instead.

"Yes. In ways that I am only beginning to understand." T'Challa gestured toward the conference table, and they both took their seats.

"Thank you for meeting with me," said Steve. "I'm sure you have many other demands on your time."

"Of course," T'Challa replied. "In light of the ongoing crisis, I thought you would be interested to know that I am allowing your government to access astronomical and other observational data from the Wakandan satellite network, as well as a library of research by our leading theoretical physicists. Perhaps some of it will help them in their attempts to track the portals. In fact, a small team of physicists and engineers has volunteered to travel to the US to provide on-site assistance. I am still waiting to hear if your State Department will accept the offer."

Steve blinked as his entire agenda was dispensed with in the first ten seconds of the meeting. Then his brain caught up again and he said quickly, "Thank you, that's a very generous gesture. I'm sure the government task force will be glad for all the help it can get."

"It is the least I can do."

"Have you learned anything new about the portal?"

"New? No," said T'Challa. "But we have learned something old."

He touched a control on the table, set discreetly into the grain of the wood, and a holographic display lit up in front of them. It showed a set of documents written in Wakandan, and a few hand-drawn images.

"These letters were written in 1871," T'Challa said. "They describe a massive black circle that appeared in a small town near our northern border. It swept through the streets, and forty people vanished, never to be seen again. A severe and unseasonal lightning storm struck immediately afterward."

He touched one of the drawings, which magnified to fill the display: simple one-story buildings on either side of a dirt road, and towering over them, a gaping void bounded by a circle that sparked with energy. Exactly like the video from Denver.

"This has happened before." Steve leaned back in his chair and tried to process the news. "Did it only appear the once?"

"There is no way to be sure," said T'Challa. "In those days, we were not in contact with our neighbors. If the portal appeared in other countries, we would not necessarily have known it. I have sent out a general request through the UN for other governments to check their records, but so far there have been no replies. As we have seen, the portal does not always leave a witness."

"So there's no way to know how many more times it's going to return."

"Unfortunately not. However," he added, "there is still something to be learned from the previous incident. In 1871, the portal left something behind."

"What?" Steve asked.

"A seed." T'Challa touched a different control, and the image changed to a photograph of a plant, maybe a foot high, with a slender stem and a burst of delicate filaments at the top.

Steve wasn't a botanist. To his eyes, the plant was not obviously extraterrestrial. It was, however, obviously unhealthy. Its crown of filaments had bare patches, and it was bent almost double under its own weight.

"As you can see, the plant was sickly," T'Challa said. "It lived only a few months, and did not produce more seeds. But the fact that it was able to germinate at all—"

"—suggests that it came from a compatible environment," Steve finished. He drew a deep breath as a weight seemed to lift off his shoulders. "The abductees are still alive."

"There is a chance."

"Did you—"

"I have sent these documents to your government."

Steve gave a wry smile. "I don't even need to be here for this meeting, do I."

"That depends," T'Challa said, also smiling slightly. "What did you really want to ask me, Steven?"

He paused. There was a debt here. Steve recognized that. What T'Challa was doing for Bucky… for all of them… it was far more than Steve had ever expected, and certainly more than he'd had any right to ask. The last thing he wanted to do now was throw T'Challa's hospitality back in his face.

But the drive was still there, burning beneath his skin like it had been ever since Natasha's first text — do something, _do_ _something_ , _DO SOMETHING_.

"It looks like I might need my quinjet back," Steve said. "Will that be a problem?"

T'Challa gave a quick nod; expectations confirmed. "You wish to return to your country," he said.

"Yes."

"And once there, what would you do?"

"Find the next portal and bring back the people who have been taken."

"Hm." T'Challa leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. "The portal traveled almost fifteen hundred kilometers between its first and second sites," he said. "If the two groups are separated by that distance, it would be impossible to reach them both on foot."

"No," Steve agreed. "I'd need to take some kind of vehicle."

"Which I suppose you would steal?"

This was _not_ the moment to take offense. Steve took a careful breath and tried to tamp the anger out of his tone. "I was planning to ask first," he said.

"Ah, yes, because your countrymen will be eager to accommodate Captain America. Very well: you have acquired transportation. Suppose the portal has moved another fifteen hundred kilometers. How do you find the previous sites? How do you know where the next one will be — or, indeed, if there will be a next one at all?"

"Are you saying we should give them all up for dead?" Steve shot back. "One hundred people already taken, who knows how many more if this thing comes back, and we all just sit on our hands? I don't accept that!"

"Nor do I," T'Challa said with infuriating calm. "But neither you nor I have enough information yet to affect their fate. I was told you were a strategist, Steven. What chance of success does your strategy have?"

Right. He was the strategist. He devised the plan of attack, he deployed the troops, each according to their strengths, and he got the job done. The perfect soldier.

Overlooking that one time when the plan had amounted to stealing an Army jeep, driving across enemy lines to Azzano, and punching his way into a POW camp. Funny how those details got left out of the history books.

"I realize there are still a lot of unknowns," Steve said, "but I can't find the answers unless I'm _there_. What if the portal had come back to Wakanda? What would you want to do?"

"I would want the same things you want," T'Challa said. "To find my people and protect them, and to take my revenge upon the force that dared to violate our borders. But I would also remember that the last time I acted in haste, out of emotion, I came quite close to murdering an innocent man."

As if Steve was going to stand by for that kind of distortion of history. "Not _that_ close," he said.

"Sufficiently close," T'Challa countered.

They broke into a chuckle at the same time, and the tension ebbed a little.

"You are going to go no matter what I say," T'Challa said, and it was an acknowledgement rather than a question.

"I'd rather not have to dodge Wakandan air defenses on my way out," Steve admitted, "but short of that…"

"How many will go with you?"

"I'm still trying to talk Sam out of it—"

"You will not succeed."

"—and I haven't spoken to Wanda or Scott yet, but I think they'll want to stay here." He looked up quickly. "Unless that's—"

T'Challa waved a hand. "Refuge was granted to each. Your friends will be safe. However," he added, "as I told you from the start, I cannot and will not support a private vigilante organization."

"I'm not asking you to," Steve said.

"Then you understand that if you go, I cannot promise that you will be allowed to return."

He couldn't say that the warning came as a shock, but it was still a gut punch to hear it said aloud — not so much for his own sake as for his team's, who deserved far better than a life on the run. He could feel his lip twist, and turned his face away. "If that's what you feel you need to do to protect your country's interests."

"My first responsibility is to Wakanda," T'Challa acknowledged, "but there are other considerations." He pushed back his chair and walked to the window. "This event is a reminder that our world faces threats from without as well as within. I believe that the Avengers have a role to play in our global security, and it is my hope one day to see your team pardoned and reinstated."

"And bound by the Accords."

"Yes," he said firmly, turning back to face Steve. "I still believe, as my father did, that the Avengers must be accountable to the nations that they wish to protect." T'Challa paused, and his expression softened. "However, the tragedy in Lagos accelerated our timetable — perhaps too much, in retrospect. I wish to try again with input from all sides, including yours. When the time is right, I will sponsor an amended proposal, but there is little I can do while anti-Avengers sentiment is so high." He spread his hands. "Do you understand? Your participation in a successful rescue could help to sway public support back to your side."

"Whereas if we make another mess," Steve concluded, "the situation becomes that much worse."

"Precisely."

It was Steve's turn to stand up and pace to the other end of the room. "Is this why you've had us on such a tight leash?" he asked. "Waiting for the right moment to stage our return?"

"Nothing so calculated," T'Challa replied, with a hint of a disapproving frown. "It seemed best to keep you out of the public eye until some of the anger had abated. I did not imagine that a new crisis would arise so soon, and I certainly had no desire to see more lives endangered."

Steve winced. "No, of course not," he said hastily, and his face grew warm at having implied otherwise.

In some sense, this conversation hadn't changed anything, except to offer him some reassurances that T'Challa wasn't going to have the quinjet shot down before it left Wakandan airspace. He was still going to go. He still _had_ to go. The press, positive or negative, was irrelevant.

Truth be told, this was the first time that he'd given any serious thought to the mission's aftermath. Which was not to say that he'd been seriously intending to jump through the next passing portal with no idea of how to get back: obviously he would have to wait until the tracking problem had been solved. Beyond that… well.

Bucky was as well defended as he could possibly be. T'Challa was a man of his word, Steve had no doubts on that front. He would find a way to undo the Winter Soldier programming and give Bucky his life back. He would keep him safe.

A lot of things didn't seem terribly important beyond that.

It was surreal to look back on the… what, twenty-four hours? Less? When the issue that had thrown the team into conflict had only been 'who chooses the Avengers' missions', before it had become 'who decides if Bucky lives or dies'. Steve mentally prodded at the notion of reinstatement under some new version of the Accords — one that could be negotiated in advance rather than imposed as an all-or-nothing deal. Maybe there was a set of safeguards he could live with. Maybe it was simpler to retire, like he'd intended in the first place. He wasn't sure.

He was sure, however, that the rest of his team deserved the opportunity to make that decision for themselves. If they did this right, it would be a chance to show the world the Avengers as they were meant to be, instead of what they'd somehow become.

"I have no intention of getting into any kind of fight on US soil," he said. "My plan is to slip in quietly, do the job, and slip out again. That's all."

"And yet plans often do not go according to plan," said T'Challa. "I will not stop you from leaving. I only want you and your people to be aware of all the potential consequences."

"I understand," Steve said. "Thank you. For everything."

He stepped forward, and they clasped hands.

"Good luck to you," T'Challa said. "I look forward to hearing of everyone's safe return."

 

* * *

 

"Do you think the suit would work on alien ants?" Scott asked. "Actually, do you think there _are_ alien ants?"

Sam grit his teeth and reminded himself sternly that people coped with stress in a variety of ways. "No idea," he said.

Scott carved another slice out of his apple, and chomped. "I mean, there are probably alien bugs," he said. "So the question is, how ant-like would an alien bug have to be to count as an ant?"

"Beats me."

"Of course, I don't actually _have_ the suit," he continued, undeterred. "So even if I found an alien bug, I'd have no way to tell if it counted as an ant or not."

"Damn shame."

"Talking about ants," Wanda said tightly, "makes me feel like there are ants crawling on me, even though I know there aren't."

"Yeah," said Scott. "You'd think that would go away eventually, but I gotta say, it never really does."

Earlier that morning, Sam had stepped out the front door with the intention of heading upstairs to check on Wanda and Scott, only to find the two of them already coming down the hallway. Since then, they'd all been congregating in Sam and Steve's living room to watch the news. Sam couldn't help feeling like it was an empty gesture: staring at a screen, in another continent, unable to help. But it was all they had.

Ten hours since the Denver portal, and it seemed like very little progress had been made. An official government task force had been assembled to analyze the phenomenon and design a rescue strategy. They were operating on the assumption that there was a planet or some other inhabitable environment on the other side of the portal, though based on what evidence, Sam wasn't sure. They were also operating on the assumption that the portal would continue its twenty-four-hour schedule. A countdown to the next presumed appearance was displayed on every channel.

And that was all. No one knew if the portal was going to reappear, or where. The missing were still missing.

The first confirmed fatalities had been reported an hour ago, when a sudden rainstorm in western Pennsylvania had sparked a panic. Traffic volume had surged, and between the bad weather and a few reckless drivers, multiple car crashes had led to a dozen injuries and two deaths.

The President and various other officials were now calling for calm. People were asked to stay in their homes rather than attempt to flee. This was generally regarded as an empty platitude, since the entire country had already seen video evidence of how the portal disregarded solid walls.

Sam shuddered to imagine what was going to happen when the next portal was due. They needed a breakthrough, and they needed it fast.

His phone buzzed, and he checked his texts. Steve was on his way up.

"He's back," Sam announced.

The door opened a few seconds later. Steve's expression was still locked up tight behind the Captain America front, but Sam didn't sense any new anger or frustration about him.

"How'd it go?" he asked.

Steve dropped his keys on the side table and joined them in the living room. "Better than I expected, in some ways," he said. "T'Challa won't stop us from going."

"But?"

"But anyone who goes might not be allowed back in."

He took them through the highlights, starting with the revelation that the portal had appeared on Earth before, and left behind a souvenir.

"Everyone who was taken is still alive," Steve said. "I'm sure of it. They're stranded on another world somewhere, and they just need someone to show them the way back."

Sam refrained from pointing out that one plant was hardly a guarantee of anything. At this point, they all needed a little hope.

Then came T'Challa's travel restrictions, or lack thereof, which surprised Sam almost as much as the seed had. "And here I was expecting him to try and keep us grounded," he said. "What happened to all that tough talk about keeping our noses out of other countries' borders?"

"I guess it doesn't apply to foreign invading dimensions."

So: if they scored a win, T'Challa would push for a general pardon and a do-over of the whole Accords debate. If they screwed up, they would be hung out to dry. Harsh terms, but all things considered, maybe not entirely unfair ones.

Sam frankly doubted that there was any version of the Accords he'd be willing to sign. Learning that seventy years of history had been secretly manipulated by a Nazi organization hidden inside SHIELD could really turn a person off of trusting any government agency ever again. But if retirement and an expunged record were on the table, then _hell_ yeah, he wanted the chance to go home one day. The mission on its own was already worth the risk. This new angle only strengthened his resolve.

Scott, on the other hand, was visibly squirming. "So, listen," he said once Steve had finished his report, "I've been thinking things over and, well, reinstatement is a nice thought for all of you, I guess, but since I was never actually _in_ stated—"

"It's fine, Scott," said Steve.

"And I gotta say, interdimensional portals are a little outside my comfort zone. At least Siberia was on the same planet — not that I actually made it that far—"

"You're under no obligation," said Steve.

"And without the suit, I'm just a thief, and it sounds like you need more of an intrepid interplanetary explorer type—"

"I think you should stay here," said Steve.

"Plus I want to see my daughter again someday, which I can't do if I get stuck at the other end of the universe." Scott heaved a sigh and said, "Captain, I'm really sorry, but… I just can't come with you."

Steve nodded gravely. "I understand."

Scott stood up, and Steve stood up, and they shook hands as men did, because apparently Scott still got a kick out of doing that.

"Okay," Scott said. "I'm actually gonna keep sitting here, though, if that's all right with everyone?"

"Sure," Steve said patiently, and they sat back down again.

"What about me?" Wanda said to Steve. "Were you planning to ask what I want to do?"

Wanda was a source of some concern, as far as Sam was concerned. He'd been discreetly keeping an eye on her since the four of them had gotten back from the Raft. The experience had been rough on all of them, but hers had been a special level of hell, and Sam was not at all sure that she was dealing with it yet.

She spent most daylight hours out of doors, either taking long walks through the city and the surrounding wildnerness, or using her telekinesis to boost herself from the apartment balcony onto the roof and just soaking in the sun. For the first few days, she'd been closed off and completely silent, rebuffing both Sam's and Steve's attempts to draw her out. That had eased up a little recently, although she was still much more taciturn than she'd been before. Sam had considered it a major step when she'd accepted their invitation to a team dinner two nights ago.

If it were up to him, he would absolutely not clear her for field work yet. She needed more time to recover.

Steve seemed to be on roughly the same page. "Sorry, Wanda, I wasn't trying to leave you out," he said. "I just assumed that you would want to stay here as well. T'Challa has promised that you'll be safe in Wakanda, no matter what happens."

Her smile was bitter. "I think I've had enough of being locked away someplace _safe_."

"That wasn't what I meant," Steve said quickly. "But going back to the States will be risky, and I can't ask you to put yourself on the line for me again. Not after what it cost you the last time."

"Whatever you might think, Steve, I don't always do things just because you ask me to." She paused, and looked down at her hands, folded in her lap. "If we bring everyone back," she said, "do you think it will help to show people that they don't have to be afraid of us?"

Steve was silent for a moment. "I don't know," he said. "It might be a start."

Wanda nodded. "Then I have to go," she said. "I thought… there was a moment, back at the compound, when I thought that it didn't matter how other people saw me." She lowered her chin further, and a lock of hair fell in front of her eyes. "But it's not true. As long as I'm feared, I'll always have to hide. I can't live like that. If there's any way to make this right, I have to be a part of it."

Damn. Steve caught Sam's eye, just for a second, and Sam knew that he'd been won over. Wanda was in. They'd just have to keep an eye on her and see how things developed.

"All right," Steve said. "If you're sure that's what you want, then I'm happy to have you with us."

"So what do we do?" she asked.

"There's one more thing we know," Steve said. "This came in from Nat while I was on my way back from the palace." He set his phone down on the coffee table, and the rest of them leaned in to read the message.

_hearing rumors that DHS was warned about the portal months ago_

_no timetable or location but described event exactly_

_dismissed at the time_

_task force now attempting to locate informant, but tracks covered by an expert_

Sam sat back slowly. "If someone predicted this thing months ago, how the hell is this the first we're hearing about it?"

Scott shrugged. "Well, without any kind of evidence, the story sounds pretty ridiculous, doesn't it?"

"Beforehand, maybe, but where is this informant now?"

"That's the question," said Steve. "Say you knew this was coming. You tried to warn people, and no one listened. What would you do next?"

"Depends on why I wasn't willing to put my name to the warning," Sam said. "But at minimum, I'd be tracking the investigation pretty closely."

"I would go to the sites," said Wanda. "If I had been trying to prevent it, and failed, then I would need to see where it had happened."

"Natasha agrees with you," Steve said. "She and Clint are staying in Denver to look for signs of surveillance. If they come up empty, then they're going to shadow the response team to the next site and try again there."

"Assuming they can find the next site," said Sam.

"It's all we've got right now," Steve said. Someone who didn't know him probably wouldn't have noticed the slight pause that followed, or the sudden tension in his neck and shoulders. "We should leave as soon as possible," he said. "Clint knows a few quiet places where we can land and hide the jet. We'll set up a rendezvous with them once we know the destination."

Sam knew exactly what the issue was. The cryogenics research facility was in the jungle, well outside the city limits. It was a ninety-minute round trip, which Steve made daily. Except he hadn't had the chance today.

"The clock isn't running out on us yet," Sam said. "At top speed, it's what, about eight hours to Denver? Less, if the next site is further east? And we've got fourteen hours until the portal opens."

"So everyone's assuming, but I don't think it's been confirmed."

"Yeah, well, like you said, it's all we've got right now. Go on, man," Sam said. "Say goodbye to him."

Scott and Wanda suddenly became very interested in the TV screen.

Steve looked away, but not before Sam saw his face start to redden. "Sam, I can't delay the mission just so I can talk to someone who's unconscious."

"Sure you can. And if you won't, then I just did." He glanced at the clock. It was just after noon. "We rendezvous at the hangar at fourteen hundred. Better get it in gear, Rogers."

 


	3. Chapter 3

Illinois. The math said Illinois.

…Probably. Maybe Indiana. Maybe Michigan, or Lake Michigan. (Maybe somewhere else entirely, if any of his assumptions and estimates and plausible conjectures turned out to be false.) But probably Illinois.

The map said that Illinois was still a pretty big target.

The clock said — huh. The clock said it was the next morning.

Tony leaned back and stretched, and began extracting himself bit by bit from his chair. Knees, hips and _owdammit_ back all registered their complaints. This had been easier once upon a time, hadn't it? He was pretty sure a lot of things had.

Coffee mug. No coffee. Not acceptable.

"FRIDAY, have you found my car yet?" he asked en route to the machine.

"There is no record of a vehicle that fits your parameters," FRIDAY said.

He stopped dead and glared up at her speaker. "What? No, I don't buy that. Check it again."

"These results have already been verified," she said primly. "Over sixty percent of the vehicles that entered Denver during the specified time frame have since left the city, but none departed the state."

Coffee brewing. Borderline acceptable. Negative search results absolutely unacceptable.

He was _not_ wrong about this. Black Hat had a driver; Black Hat was expecting to come back to Earth. The only thing that made sense was for the driver to be following the portals on this side so that they could meet up again upon Black Hat's return. There was a portal chaser out there somewhere, there _had_ to be, so why—

"He switched cars," Tony realized. "Dammit. If he was paranoid enough to kill the cameras nearby, then of course he switched cars. Okay—"

"Which is why I broadened the search to include all vehicles that left Denver after the portal and eventually exited Colorado." He could hear the smirk in her tone, lack of lips be damned.

Tony rolled his eyes heavily. "In the future, feel free to give me pertinent information when I _ask_ for it. Did you or did you not find my car?"

"Due to unusual traffic volume, Denver was gridlocked for three hours," FRIDAY said. "Several thousand cars departed the city limits. Of those, ten percent went on to leave the state."

"Are any of them now in Illinois?"

"Negative, boss."

He wasn't giving up on his math that quickly. "All right, how many drove through the night?"

"That narrows it to twelve."

"Bearing east?"

"Only four."

"Show me routes."

The nearest screen switched on, and a map came up with four paths traced in blue. Three of them were sensible trajectories with obvious destinations. Car number four, on the other hand, headed northeast into Nebraska, backtracked into Colorado briefly, then continued east, circled Omaha twice, and meandered back and forth across the Missouri River at least three times on the way to Kansas City.

Either that was one lackadaisical road trip, or they was tracking a signal and having a tough time doing it.

"The one went to Kansas City," Tony said. "Show me the car."

The screen split into several panels of traffic cam footage. A helpful white circle indicated the car in question. It was a light blue mid-size sedan: Japanese, Tony thought. Maybe a Honda. Not too new, not too old, not remarkable in any way.

"How many in the car?"

"Two," said FRIDAY.

"I don't suppose you've got pictures."

"Afraid not, boss."

Yeah, that would have been too easy. "Where are they now?" Tony asked.

"Current location unknown."

He shot her another glare. "Really, or are you just building suspense?"

"The most recent image is from an hour ago," she said. "They headed east out of Kansas City, and turned onto a county highway with no camera feed."

Tony poured himself a fresh cup of coffee and let the caffeine work its magic. He could fly out there and find the car himself. That was the obvious thing to do. Except, given the current circumstances, anyone who saw Iron Man doing a fly-by might assume that he was in the area in response to the portal. Then came panic, and they'd already seen what happened when panic got together with highway driving.

Also, of course, he'd been ordered to stay home.

"They can't stay off the major highways forever," Tony said. "They don't have time. Continue monitoring, and let me know the second you pick them up again."

"Yes, boss."

Eight hours on the clock, and nothing he could do but wait.

Maybe the task force had made some progress overnight. Tony knocked back another gulp of coffee and switched his screen to the news.

That was how he learned that the National Guard was evacuating Chicago.

 

* * *

 

Steve brought the quinjet in for a landing on the sparse, dirt-packed field, and taxied forward into the hangar that had once been — and pretty much still was — a barn.

Clint seemed to have a passing familiarity with every piece of unused land in the Midwest that was big enough to set down on. "I know some folks," he'd said vaguely after giving them the coordinates. "Just shut the door behind you. The jet'll be safe there for a few days."

The news had come through less than an hour into their flight: Chicago was being evacuated. This particular corner of northern Illinois was the closest landing site they'd been able to arrange, and even then, they were cutting it close: four hours until the portal was due, and they still had a two-hour drive ahead of them. Natasha was en route to Chicago, while Clint was detouring to pick them up.

Steve texted Clint that they'd touched down without incident, and an acknowledgment came back a few seconds later. "He'll be here in about ten minutes," Steve announced to the others. "You should stretch your legs while you can."

Wanda needed no encouragement to get out into the open air. Sam stayed behind to help him slide the modified barn doors shut, then they walked side by side around the corner to wait by the dirt road that led to the highway. It was a bright spring afternoon, quite warm in the sun and just right in the shade.

"Home sweet home, huh?" Sam said, and grinned.

Steve smiled back, although his heart wasn't in it. Of course it was great to be back in the US again, but it wasn't like this trip bore any resemblance to a homecoming.

Sam, perceptive as always, asked, "What's on your mind?"

"Nothing," he said reflexively.

Sam arched his eyebrows.

Steve sighed. Usually he could tune out distractions and focus on the problem at hand, but there was something different about this one. They'd entered US airspace in stealth mode, without clearance, like trespassers. Something about that action — like taking the first step up a mountain, rather than viewing it from a distance — had driven home for him just how overwhelming the obstacles were that stood between his team and their old lives.

From there, it had been a short step to dwelling on those particular obstacles that couldn't be overcome by mere politics.

"Rescuing those people will be worth it, no matter what the outcome is for us," Steve said. "But as far as the team is concerned… best-case scenario, we get to go back to Wakanda. Then somewhere down the road, _maybe_ T'Challa manages to renegotiate the Accords, and _maybe_ our side of the story is enough to get us reinstated. And even then…"

"Even then?" Sam prompted.

As if Sam hadn't already worked out what he meant. "It still won't fix Siberia."

(After they'd gotten back from the Raft, Steve had told Sam the whole story. Sam had thought it over for a long moment, then replied, "I gotta say, I probably would have slugged you, too.")

"You're right," Sam said. "It won't."

It still hurt to think about Siberia, or even _around_ it. The memories were surrounded by a cushion of anger and fear and regret, like the swelling around a sprain.

The pain was made all the worse by the glimpse Steve had gotten of how it could have gone instead. Tony had shown up at the bunker, and he'd been _with_ him again, prepared to face the threat side-by-side like they were supposed to do. They'd walked in, all three of them together, as a team. (And there had been a treacherous little corner of his mind where he'd thought, _Maybe I'll get to keep this._ )

Then Zemo had shattered it all to pieces.

Afterward, beaten to hell about as thoroughly as… well, as that time on the helicarrier in DC, come to think of it, with Bucky draped over his shoulder, barely conscious, and Tony still spitting recriminations at his back, the only thing Steve had been able to do was drop the shield and walk away.

He didn't know how they could come back from that. If there _was_ a way back from that.

"I couldn't let him kill him." The words came out on impulse.

"No, you couldn't."

"He wasn't going to stop. I had to disable the suit. There was no other choice."

"No, there wasn't."

Steve sighed again. "I know I'm partly to blame for what happened—"

"Good, then you don't need me to tell you."

"—and I want to make it right again, but I don't know what I'm supposed to do."

Sam's expression told Steve that he wasn't going to like the answer.

"Considering what he found out, and _how_ ," Sam said, "don't you think it's reasonable for him to need some space to sort through it all?"

"Of course it is."

"Well then, the only thing you can do is step back. You can't expect him to be okay on your schedule." Sam clapped him amiably on the shoulder. "In the meantime, we've got more than enough problems right here in front of us without going looking for more."

Steve certainly couldn't argue with that.

He could hear the low rumble of a car engine, although he guessed it was still too faint for standard-issue ears. "Clint's almost here," he said. "You're right — let's deal with one crisis at a time."

"Dude, I'm always right."

The noise of the engine grew, and was soon accompanied by the crunch of tires over dirt. Wanda broke off her amble about the field and joined them in time to meet the nondescript tan station wagon when it pulled up beside the barn.

Clint stepped out, phone in hand, wearing an earpiece and an aggrieved expression. "Yeah," he said to whoever was on the line, and switched the call from the hands-free back to the phone. "Uh-huh. Sure. Hey, look at that, I just found Steve. I think Steve should hear this. I'm gonna give you to Steve."

"Who is—" and then Steve had to catch the phone before it smacked him in the nose. He turned it rightside up and put it, tentatively, to his ear. "Hello?"

"Hi, Steve, this is Jane. Listen — the portal is _not_ going to Chicago. Or at least they can't possibly have proved it conclusively."

"Who were you talking to?" Sam asked Clint.

"Are you sure?" Steve asked Jane.

"Foster," Clint said wearily. "She wouldn't stop telling me math."

" _Yes_ ," Jane said. "At least I'm pretty sure. Actually, the question isn't that simple. Like I was just saying to Clint—"

"Clint can fill me in later," Steve said quickly. "Just… give me the short version."

"Okay, _basically_ , the issue is this. The Asgardian Bifrost is an artificially generated wormhole. Since it goes wherever the user directs it, you can't predict the next one from the last one, right? Whereas the convergence in Greenwich was a natural phenomenon with a random component to it, so even if you couldn't predict with certainty where the next breach was going to occur, you could still calculate a probability density over any given region."

"Sure," said Steve when some remark seemed to be called for.

"As far as I can tell, the portal that we're seeing now is something in between. I think it was constructed artificially — parts of the signature are very similar to the Bifrost — but then whoever built it just left it in some kind of automatic mode. It's like a lighthouse, sweeping out a predetermined path. But there's also a targeted component to it. The general region can be predicted, but within that region, it selects for the features that it likes."

"What kind of features?"

"People, for one," Jane said. "Both times it's appeared, it's taken multiple people. If you look at the average population density of the country compared with the area covered by each appearance, that outcome is incredibly unlikely unless there's a nonrandom process at work."

"But wouldn't that make Chicago a likely target?"

"Only if Chicago is within its range, and I still don't think it is," Jane said. "But if it is going to sweep through that area, then the _worst_ thing you can do is set up evacuation points just outside the city. If I'm right and the portal targets regions of high population density, then you're not pulling people out of its path, you're lining them up like a buffet!"

In other words, four hours from now, they could lose thousands — maybe tens of thousands — and there was not one damned thing that Steve could do about it.

"If evacuation increases the risk, why did the rest of the task force…" Steve trailed off when Clint made a sharp slashing motion across his throat. "Jane, are you _on_ the task force?"

"No!" she snapped. "Can you believe that? They won't give me clearance! And I know exactly who they're using instead: there's this group out of UCLA that keeps publishing rebuttals to my papers, even though I've explained to them _very_ clearly why their arguments show a fundamental lack of understanding of—"

Whatever understanding it was that the UCLA group lacked, it turned out that Steve lacked it also.

"—which is why, if you insist on restricting yourself to an overly simplistic model of—"

Steve shot Clint a look. Clint shrugged.

"—which is what I told them in the first place!"

"I can see how that would be a serious problem," Steve hazarded.

"I know, right?"

Her diatribe had given him a few seconds to think. Fundamentally, the problem remained the same, whether they were rescuing one hundred or ten thousand: how did they find the next portal, and once they were on the other side, how did they get back? Matters of logistics could be dealt with, but first he needed an expert to get him to the correct location.

"In your best judgment," Steve asked, "where is the next portal going to be?"

She paused, and Steve could hear computer keys clicking. "I'm still refining my calculations," Jane said. "I'm almost positive it'll be somewhere in Illinois. Right now, the probability that it appears as far north as Chicago is coming out at… just under fifteen percent. My sixty-percent confidence interval is about a hundred miles square, starting a hundred fifty miles further south."

Which was functionally useless. Each portal opened for less than a minute. He needed a target zone measured in square feet, not square miles.

"Is there any way to predict its location exactly?" he asked.

"According to my models, the portal should leave a faint EM signature as it moves. If you want to track it accurately, then a team has to be following it on the ground. There should be a small delay between when the portal locks onto its target and when it actually opens. If you stay with it long enough to pin down the site to within, say, a few blocks, then there might still be enough time to get everyone out. That's the only approach I can think of that has any chance of working."

"Do you have the equipment you would need to track the signal?"

"Sure, but in my lab, not my luggage!"

"Where are you?"

"Honolulu right now," she said. "I was at a conference in Tokyo when all this started. I'm trying to make it back, but there weren't a lot of last-minute flights available. I leave for LAX in about an hour."

Which meant she wouldn't arrive until tomorrow morning. It would take even longer for her to pick up whatever she needed, and longer still to find the signal. Today's portal was out of the question; they'd be lucky to catch up to tomorrow's in time.

If there _was_ a portal tomorrow.

Steve took a slow breath and reminded himself that it was a lot more than they'd had five minutes ago. "Thanks, Jane," he said. "Just one more question. Is there anything you can tell me about the other side?"

Sudden silence. When Jane spoke again, she sounded aghast. "Steve, you're not thinking about _going_ , are you?"

"I have reason to believe that the portal leads to a survivable environment, but I can't go until I know how to get back. Would your tracking device work there, too?"

"I couldn't even _guess_! Steve, this portal isn't just crossing the galaxy — it's punching its way in from _somewhere else_. There could be literally anything on the other side! Not just a different planet, but different fundamental laws of nature!"

"But it can't be too different if things that live there can live here too, right?"

She gave an exasperated sigh. "I guess so? Maybe? It's _vaguely_ possible, but that's all I can say."

"Understood," Steve said. "Thanks again. Let us know when your flight gets in."

He tossed the phone back to Clint, who tucked it into his pocket.

Wanda's attention had drifted to something over her right shoulder. She startled a little at the sudden motion, and quickly refocused on Steve. Sam and Clint were already waiting expectantly.

"So what's the situation, Cap?"

Steve relayed the parts of the conversation that he'd understood.

Clint scowled. "How come you got the lighthouse story and all I got was fucking gravitational field tensors?"

"Just lucky, I guess." Steve took a moment to tuck his impatience carefully away. "At this point, there's very little chance that we'll be ready to go in four hours. Our best bet is to meet up with Jane tomorrow, and use her equipment to track down the portal's next appearance tomorrow afternoon."

"And hope to hell we don't have to figure out how to transport a couple thousand people back with us," Sam said. "Who's running this show, anyway?"

"Someone who won't take advice from anyone associated with an Avenger," Clint said. "I'll give you three guesses."

"There's still one source of information we haven't pinned down yet," said Steve. "Clint, any news about Homeland Security's anonymous source?"

"Nothing," he said. "Nat and I scoured Denver for hours. A bunch of agencies inspected the site and interviewed witnesses, and the whole time, there wasn't a trace of surveillance by anyone but us."

"Jane said the only way to track the portal is to chase it on the ground," said Sam. "If our mysterious third party really is keeping tabs on things, maybe that's what they're doing instead."

"Makes sense," said Clint. "They could have already left Denver by the time we got there."

Steve nodded. "I agree. That means our best chance to find them is to find the next portal."

"Which, if I've got this right, we've narrowed down to 'not Chicago, probably'." Clint spread his hands. "Not a whole lot to go on."

Wanda was looking over her shoulder again. Steve checked in that direction himself, but he didn't see or hear anything suspicious. "Chicago is still a place to start," he said. "Jane thinks the next site will be further south, so we'll circle around in that direction and—"

He broke off when Wanda abruptly turned and walked off in the direction that she'd been staring. "Wanda? What—"

She held up her hand. "Don't. Please. Just… wait."

So they waited, and she stared, while seconds ticked away. Clint looked wary, and Sam looked concerned, and Steve… was torn. Wanda needed to know that he trusted her. But unless she could tell them what was happening, he didn't know how long he could afford to let this go on.

They stood in stillness for fully a minute. Steve was just about to ask her again what was happening when Wanda slowly raised one arm to point off into the distance.

"There," she said. "It's coming from there."

Clint asked, "What is, Wanda?"

She tilted her head to one side slightly, and said, "The portal."

It was strangely easy, sometimes, to forget just how much power Wanda really had. Since she'd joined the team, Steve had come to view her telekinesis as… not mundane, exactly, but as a known quantity: a tool whose functions he could depend on for mission-planning purposes.

Then a moment like this came along to remind him that he didn't understand her full capabilities at all.

Moving slowly, Steve walked forward to join her. Wanda's face was tight with concentration, her eyes fixed on the horizon.

"How do you know?" he asked her.

"I know."

"But—"

"I just _know_!" she snapped. "I can feel it. It's… _cold_ , and _wrong_. It is something that should not be the way it is. And it's coming from _there_."

She was — Steve checked the sun quickly to orient himself — pointing to the southeast. Most of the state was in that direction. It was plausible; it wasn't conclusive.

Then again, maybe it didn't need to be. If it was enough for Steve to know that Jane Foster understood portal physics better than anyone else did, then maybe it was enough for him to know that Wanda could perceive things that no one else could.

"Can you track it?" he asked.

She lowered her arm, and turned to face him. "I can try."

 

* * *

 

Sixty goddamn minutes before the next portal hit, and FRIDAY had finally found the car. They'd managed to sneak their way into Illinois without showing up on camera, but time had won out over discretion and now they were gunning it east on the 72.

Not, Tony observed, en route to Chicago.

He had no idea how the task force had come up with Chicago in the first place. The theory didn't seem to support a prediction that specific. Of course, it was possible that they were giving Foster access to better data than Tony could cobble together, and she'd cracked the problem just like he'd figured she would. Maybe his portal chasers were just lost.

Or maybe the two people in that car knew something that no one else did.

He'd been ordered to stay home. That was supposed to be the end of it. Right? After all, the last time he'd snuck out after Ross's curfew had been… how to put this… an utter fucking catastrophe. Maybe it was past time for him to start learning from his mistakes.

That held him for about five minutes. Then he told FRIDAY to get the suit ready.

He had to know. He had to know how they'd seen this coming. He had to know what was on the other side.

And if the task force was wrong about the next location, he had to know that, too.

While FRIDAY finished her preflight, Tony headed back upstairs. It was a dick move to leave the premises without at least mentioning something to Rhodey, and that was the only reason he was—

What he meant was, he wasn't saying goodbye like _saying goodbye_ , like there was any possibility of—

No. No possibility whatsoever. No imaginable reason. Even if he did end up having to direct a last-minute evacuation himself, such a thing would involve a whole lot of moving _away from_ and not even a tiny bit of moving _toward_.

He was more or less successful at keeping himself on target all the way to the common room, where Rhodey was sitting on the couch with his laptop open. The news was playing in the background, although his attention was focused on whatever he was typing.

Tony leaned against the doorway, and Rhodes looked up sharply after a few seconds. "There you are," he said. "I was wondering where you'd hidden yourself away."

"Just busy," Tony said, aiming for casual and probably landing on defensive. "In the workshop. Working. You know how it is." _Brilliant response, not at all suspicious_. "So you're good here for a while, right?" he asked. "Got everything you need? Because I have to go out for a few hours. There's a thing. Won't take long, but I just figured I'd check in before I left."

Rhodey set his laptop to one side and gave him his full attention, which was exactly what Tony did not want. "Where are you going?" he asked.

"I need to see some people about a car," Tony said.

"A car."

"Yeah. Could be a real collector's item." _In a thousand years. In an alternate universe_.

Rhodey had one of his _I'm not buying your crap_ looks on. "Tony, is this about the portal?"

Tony gave the most diffident shrug he could muster. "Nope, not going to Chicago."

"You're just… going to buy a car. Right now."

"See what they've got, anyway. Maybe make an offer." Tony could sense that his web of deception was about to collapse, so he quickly added, "Anyway, back in a few hours, gimme a call if you need anything," and bailed.

Outside. Outside was good, and enclosed in armor was better. The HUD lit up with his flight plan and the usual environmental info, and the familiar pressure of the thrusters beneath his hands and feet lifted him into the sky.

No matter what else happened, Tony still fucking _loved_ that part.

At top speed, the flight was barely half an hour. The portal chasers continued on their path east, passing up a few more obvious opportunities to turn north toward Chicago. There was no mistaking the fact that they were headed somewhere else.

He told himself again, sternly: evacuations moved _away from_ , not _toward_.

When he was still five minutes out, FRIDAY reported that she'd lost them _again_.

"Oh, for— show me the map."

Tony slowed to subsonic but maintained his altitude, the better not to be seen by passing motorists who might get the wrong idea and panic. Given where the car had disappeared, there were only two turns that they could have made. Tony took a guess and swung south, and started flying a search pattern.

Precious minutes ran off the clock with nothing to show for it, until — _there_. FRIDAY zoomed in on a little dirt road about a mile south of the highway, where a blue Honda was sitting on the shoulder with all its doors open.

Looked lonely. He decided to drop in.

As expected, there were two people in the car, and shit, they were _kids_ — not like Parker was a kid, but like Wanda was a kid, each of them twenty-five at the outside. Thing One was leaning out of the driver's side door, a phone in one hand and a laptop on his knees, and at Tony's landing he jolted so hard that both went flying. Thing Two was made of sterner stuff, and jumped out of the passenger side — Tony almost laughed — to take up a protective stance between them.

Tony straightened up and strode forward, faceplate down, playing up every inch of intimidation the suit afforded him.

Thing One had dropped to his knees to retrieve his stuff, and as Tony approached, he held out both his hands defensively. "Before you say anything — before you say _anything_ — which one is more important to you: yelling at us, or clearing the next target zone?"

( _Away from_ , not _toward_.)

"You think I can't do both?" Tony said.

"Okay, that's a very valid point, but you still need to pick one to do first." He hesitated. "Right?"

Of the _many_ questions that Tony needed answers to, the one that somehow came out of his mouth first was, "The hundred missing, are they alive?"

"Yes," said Thing Two. "There's a planet on the other side. We have people there."

"Oh, well, thank god for _that_ , I'll just have my people call your people — what the _hell_ do you think you're playing at? Who put the pair of you in charge of managing this situation? Do you have any idea how _irresponsible_ —"

"Yelling or clearing," Thing One interjected quietly.

"How are you tracking it?" Tony demanded. "Where's your tech? What have you figured out that the task force hasn't?"

The two of them traded looks that Tony wasn't sure how to read. "Is that really the most important thing right now?" Thing Two asked.

"If you expect me to fly out of here on nothing but your say-so, you're damned right it is."

Thing One shook his head. "The only way you could have tracked us down is if you've been following us since Denver, which means you know we knew before anyone else did, which means you know that what we're doing works. We'll explain it after, but right now we're running out of time. _Please_."

So much yelling. _So much yelling_ , starting the instant he got back and carrying on for the foreseeable future. "You have coordinates?" Tony asked.

Thing One turned his laptop right-side up and tapped a key. "You should be looking at a map," he said.

He _was_ looking at a map, thank you FRIDAY. It started with Illinois, zoomed in to the city of Champaign, and magnified again to show a highlighted region about half a mile long that swept across several residential streets.

"How sure are you?"

"One hundred percent," said Thing One.

"Ninety-nine point five," said Thing Two.

_All_ the yelling. "How long?"

"Eighteen minutes," said Thing One. "Champaign is fifty-five miles from here. We weren't going to make it, but—"

"Yeah, got it. Stay here. Do _nothing_ until I get back."

"You need to get clear the instant it opens," Thing Two said. "Otherwise, it'll tear your suit apart."

Joyous. "Stay put," Tony snapped again, just to make sure he got the last word in. Then he angled his thrusters and took off.

 

* * *

 

It almost worked, too.

When Tony landed in the street, it was just before 6pm. Twelve minutes on the clock.

The neighborhood was a typical slice of suburbia. The houses were modest but well maintained, with neatly trimmed lawns, cars and bikes in the driveways, and toys in the backyards. The streets curved gently around each other, sprouting frequent cul-de-sacs. People would be home from work by now. Families would be eating dinner together. The portal had no damned business here. Frankly, Iron Man didn't either.

It occurred to him that if he went through with this and the portal _didn't_ show up, Ross would probably have him shot.

People came running to their windows when he landed, which made things a little easier. Tony cranked the suit's external speakers to maximum and started delivering the news.

There wasn't panic. There was fear and reflexive disbelief and more than a few protests about Chicago, but after the initial shock, pretty much everyone pulled it together and did as they were told. FRIDAY kept an outline of the target zone superimposed on his display, along with population counts for each house, and a map showing the closest streets that were out of the portal's range. Tony built an extra safety margin around the region that he'd gotten from the Wonder Twins, and directed each group of households to a specific evacuation point.

It was working. It was _fine_. He moved in short hops from street to street, calling out instructions and verifying that every house in the region was clearing out. Traffic control got a bit dicey with everyone pulling out of their driveway at once, but he dropped back down to street level when necessary to play traffic cop and keep things moving smoothly.

The portal had been moving from west to east this whole time. Tony had assumed that it would make its sweep in the same direction.

In retrospect, he should have asked about that.

Space and time tore open not twenty fucking feet away from him, and Tony blasted himself up into the sky on pure reflex. It took every tired scrap of self control he could muster to level off about a hundred feet up. His heart was pounding and he could hear his breaths coming short and quick. Every cell in his body, every reflex and instinct was screaming to _be somewhere else_.

He made himself stop and look anyway.

The streets were clearing. It was going to be close — it would have been a lot better if he hadn't started at the wrong fucking end of the sweep — but everyone had been warned and everyone was moving. He'd done his job. It was going to be okay.

Get clear, Punch and Judy had told him, and that seemed like an _excellent_ idea, no arguments from him whatsoever.

Until he heard the crunch of metal.

On the next street over, an SUV had reversed full speed into the side of a passing minivan. The SUV was basically intact, but the passenger side door of the minivan was completely caved in.

There were kids in both cars.

Both families promptly came pouring out onto the street. The drivers started shouting at each other like _that_ was any damned use.

Tony landed on the run, wrenched the two vehicles apart, and tore the passenger door off the minivan. The woman was dazed and bloody but alive and no, this wasn't exactly EMT-approved protocol but it had to be better than whatever was waiting for her on the other side. He snapped the seatbelt, lifted her as carefully as he could, and handed her to her husband.

The portal moved in a straight line, and FRIDAY's projection had updated itself accordingly. They were right on the edge of it.

A quick check confirmed that everyone else was mobile. "Run that way and do not look back," Tony ordered, pointing perpendicular to the path on his display. "It will miss you if you go right now. _Move_!"

They moved. All of them. And that was all he could do.

The portal passed through the houses on the other side of the street. It was bearing down on his position, and Tony found himself staring right into its maw. It wasn't perfectly black, like he'd thought at first. It was the deepest, darkest blue.

_Blueshift_ , Tony thought. That split second destroyed him.

The first bolt of energy lanced from the edge of the portal and earthed itself in his suit, pinning him to the ground. Electronics screamed in protest and there was a flash of vivid pain as something exploded right beside his ear. Alarm lights lit up in every direction and the air smelled of burnt hair and scorched metal. His hands flexed to trigger the thrusters, too late. They were already dead.

The second bolt killed the HUD. More explosions, each a new splash of pain, and Tony couldn't tell if the suit was still screaming or if he was. He tried to run, to eject, _anything_ , but every system was paralyzed. The portal eclipsed his view, and he had no power, no FRIDAY, no escape, _no please no_ —

Then it was on him.

 

* * *

 

They were twenty miles north of Champaign when the news came over the car radio.

Sam listened in somber silence as rumors turned into unconfirmed reports, which turned into official statements. The portal had hit Champaign. People were missing. Iron Man was one of them.

_Dammit, Stark. Don't you even_ think _about being dead._

Wanda was in the seat in front of him. Sam couldn't see her expression, but he could see her shoulders curl inward like she'd wrapped her arms around herself. The news confirmed, at least, that she really had been sensing the portal. Her _that way_ s had been tentative at first, sending them on what Sam had been privately convinced was a wild goose chase here and there across most of Illinois. Once they'd started seeing road signs for Champaign, however, she'd been unwavering in her certainty.

Sam had to wonder how things would have gone if they'd been just half an hour faster.

Clint, in the driver's seat, looked into the rearview mirror at Steve. "What now, Cap?"

Steve was handling the news like he handled everything: stoically.

"Tony knew where the portal was going to open," he said. "That means either he solved the tracking problem himself, or he found the people who did. We need to find them, too."

"The town's gonna be a zoo," Clint said. "It was tough enough for two of us to stay out of the way in Denver, never mind five."

"All the more reason for us to get in position now, before the task force can mobilize," said Steve. "You and Nat have the most experience with countersurveillance. Tell the rest of us where we need to be. If there's another team on the ground that has some answers, we're not leaving until we find them."

 

* * *

 

As soon as she saw Happy's expression, Pepper knew.

"Excuse me, Ms. Potts," he said, shutting her office door behind him. "I'm afraid I have to tell you… I mean, I wanted to tell you personally, before…" He swallowed hard. "The third portal didn't go to Chicago. It appeared about ten minutes ago in Champaign, Illinois. There are reports that Iron Man was organizing an evacuation of the site at the time of the incident. And now he's… he's gone missing. They think that he… uh—"

"He was taken," Pepper said quietly.

Happy nodded, not meeting her eyes. "That's what they're saying."

Dread didn't feel cold to her anymore. It was a banked, smoldering heat in the pit of her stomach, and she'd been carrying it ever since Denver. It didn't matter that the Avengers weren't supposed to be involved in this particular crisis. She knew that Tony could never have left it alone, just like she knew that there would never be a last mission or a last suit, no matter how many times he promised her that there would be.

What she also knew — what she'd finally come to accept, no matter how much the pain cut her to her very soul — was that she couldn't have stopped it from happening. If she'd been with him today, she would have asked Tony, _begged_ him to stay away from the portal. He might have even promised to do it. Nothing would have changed.

And now, for the second time in their lives, Tony had disappeared clean off the face of the planet, and this time the passageway had closed with him on the other side. She wanted to crawl beneath her desk and sob. She wanted to stand under the open sky and scream. She wanted to find whatever power had stolen him away and burn it to cinders.

But she couldn't do any of those things. "I understand," Pepper said instead, sounding stilted and cold to her own ears. "Thank you for telling me."

Happy made a half-hearted motion toward the door handle, then turned back. "You know he'll make it back from this, right?" he said. "That's what he does. I mean… you know that. Right?"

She wanted so badly to believe it. "Of course he will," she answered.

"Are you okay?"

"I will be," she said, and tried to offer a reassuring smile. "What about you? If you need to take some time…"

He answered stiffly, "Actually, if it's all the same to you, I'd like to stay right here and do my job."

Pepper nodded. "Of course," she said. "I'll be here for a few more hours, and then I'll be flying to New York this evening."

"Let me know if you need anything," Happy said, and finally withdrew.

She called Rhodey, of course. They told each other all the inevitable things: that Tony had his suit, that he'd found his way back from captivity before, that he was resourceful and resilient and brilliant. She promised that she'd catch a red-eye from LAX and be at the compound the next morning.

After the line went dead, Pepper had to set the phone down and cover her face with her hands and devote every bit of willpower she had to fighting off the tears. It was only a stopgap measure. She would have to face up to the shock and fear and anger eventually. But not yet. There was one more thing she needed to do.

Once her breathing was steady again, she picked her phone back up and scrolled through her contacts.

"Maria? Pepper. Yes, I heard. I want to know everything that's being done to track the portals and stage a rescue."

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to everyone reading! One thing I wanted to mention, since it's come up a few times: I'm not at all current on Agents of SHIELD. This is only based on movie canon, plus (*bites nails nervously*) a setting of my own creation.
> 
> The violence jumps up a bit in this chapter. I don't personally think it reaches the level of graphic depictions, but tag changed just in case.
> 
> WARNINGS for branding (off-screen), a glancing reference to suicide (not under active consideration), serious injury, and medical procedures performed without consent or under threat of force.

The thrusters reengaged the moment Tony reached the other side, which meant that he was about forty feet in the air and spinning wildly when his suit really got down to the business of exploding in his face. Jolts of pain came from every direction as component after component overloaded. He ejected the helmet a split second before the HUD electronics went up with a flash that would have blinded him. He was still falling as he slapped at emergency releases and hurled piece after piece of the armor away, and something dark and green and not terribly soft-looking was rushing toward him—

He managed to fling up one arm to protect his eyes, and then he was smashing through the forest canopy.

The impact of a tree branch against his torso drove the air from his lungs. He rebounded and struck another, again and again, while his ears filled with the crack of snapping wood and the smaller branches stung like whips, and there was not a damned thing he could do but tumble helplessly—

There was a sickening half-second of freefall—

Then a full-body impact and _PAIN_ and the world went white.

 

* * *

 

With some surprise, Tony discovered that he wasn't dead.

He waited a while, just in case he was mistaken.

Nope… not dead. How about that.

Proceeding methodically, he further discovered that he was breathing air. He was somewhere with an atmosphere, and if it was killing him, at least it wasn't doing it overtly. He could smell something like fresh-cut grass, with a slight sweetness to it, as if he'd landed in a flower bed.

Okay. The fundamentals were in order. Time for something more ambitious. Tony flexed his toes, and found them present and responding to instructions, which was a level of good fortune that was un-fucking-precedented. Next, he tried his fingers—

_Searing_ , vicious pain shot through his left arm from wrist to elbow and left him gasping for breath.

Because _of course_ this couldn't _possibly_ be that easy.

When he could think straight again, Tony very cautiously tried it with just his right hand, and identified five working fingers more or less where he'd expected to find them. That was about as much experimentation as he could stomach for the time being.

He opened his eyes, and took a look at his first alien planet.

He was in a forest. The trees, from what he could see, had brown trunks and green leaves in the usual configuration. Very… tree-ish. (Like he was a fucking botanist.) Bushes and saplings and such formed a layer of undergrowth. Instead of grass, the predominant ground cover in this place seemed to be a kind of blue-green moss, which he tentatively identified as the source of the honeyed scent in the air.

Unfortunately, another scent was starting to register: the metallic tang of blood.

Above him was an obvious break in the canopy where he'd come plummeting in. Beside him was a flattened stretch of underbrush that must have cushioned his fall just enough to keep it from being fatal. The cushioning hadn't been uniform, though, and it hadn't been able to compensate for a truly awful landing position. Best he could figure, he'd struck the ground on his side with his left arm trapped beneath him. A small ridge of rock, now bloodstained, rose out of the moss and completed the picture.

He steeled himself and looked a little further down, where his left arm was splayed out beside him.

One too many bends. A whole lot of red. A flash of white.

Shock was a hell of a drug, though. He should have been in really amazing amounts of pain… except… it was sort of happening somewhere off to the left of him. Kind of. _There_ rather than _here_. It wasn't…

No, that wasn't right. Was he…?

When had he closed his eyes?

Sweet-scented air… oh hell.

 

* * *

 

 When Tony woke up this time, the pain had returned with reinforcements. His left arm was a solid bar of white-hot agony. Every electrical burn he'd picked up from the damned suit seemed to be throbbing with its own distinct rhythm. It hurt to breathe in a particular way that he knew meant broken ribs. It hurt to _blink_. The right side of his face felt like it had been recently lit on fire, and his cheek had swollen to the point where he could barely open his eye.

He lifted his good hand to his face, and cautiously worked his way upward from pain to _pain_ to _OWFUCK_ when he found the welt. It ran horizontally the length of his cheekbone — some kind of fucking brand.

And that wasn't the only thing that had been done to him while he'd been unconscious. Whereas he'd been underneath tree cover before, now he had an unobstructed view of the sky. His left forearm had been straightened out and wrapped in rags, and there was a sharp smell like someone had doused it in the local equivalent of moonshine. _Charming_.

The light suddenly dimmed. Tony looked up, and there was a Minotaur standing over him.

He squeezed his eyes shut (that hurt), and tried again. Still a Minotaur.

It had wide-set eyes with a heavy brow ridge, a protruding snout, and two thick, curved horns. From the shoulders down, its body looked basically like a human man's, although its skin was a deep orange, like it had been sculpted from terracotta. It was wearing body armor made from some kind of leather, and it had a massive broadsword belted to its hip. Its feet were bare, and also they were hooves.

So… this was Minotaur Planet? Greek Mythology Planet? Had he accidentally wandered into a goddamn Star Trek episode?

The Minotaur continued to exist regardless of Tony's opinion. It dropped some kind of leather sack next to him, then turned and stumped away.

Tony guessed that sitting up was not going to be fun. He was right.

When the urge to scream had subsided to tolerable levels, he straightened up as best he could and assessed his new surroundings. He was sitting near the edge of a small clearing in what he had to assume was the same forest where he'd landed. Standing guard along the treeline were more Minotaurs. A _lot_ more. Their armor was sufficiently uniform that it had to be a… well, uniform. Soldiers, then, or some other kind of organized security force. The perimeter guards were stationed about fifteen feet apart, encircling the clearing. Tony could just spot a second layer of them positioned deeper into the forest.

The clearing itself was occupied by everyone he'd failed to save in Champaign.

A quick headcount turned up twenty. They were huddled together in small groups — presumably family or friends or neighbors who had all been taken together. There were a few bruises and more than a few tear-stained faces, but no one else seemed to be as badly hurt as Tony was. Thankfully — _thankfully_ — there were no small children, although the youngest was still hideously young: a gangly, blond-haired boy who couldn't have been more than seventeen.

Every single one of them bore a strike brand on their right cheekbone.

His fault. He should have known that Chicago wasn't the real target. He should have gone after the mystery car a lot sooner. He should have figured out Champaign for himself, since obviously there was a way to do it. He should have… he should have.

But he hadn't and his failure had a body count, like they always did. It was fitting, at least, that this time he'd managed to kill himself as well.

Desperation rose up his throat until he was choking on it. Tony looked around again, wildly, seeking out some stroke of genius ( _ha_ ) that could conceivably fix this. But there was nothing. They were outnumbered at least three to one: fighting their way out would be suicide, and even if they ran, he had no idea where they could go. If the Minotaurs' swords were indicative of this planet's level of technology, then the kind of equipment he would need to track the next portal would take months to build, if not _years_ , and he had a feeling that his captors weren't likely to hand him missile components, welding gear and two sets of precision tools this time.

Oh, and he didn't have months anyway, because without proper medical treatment he'd be dead of his injuries within the week. Couldn't forget that little wrinkle.

Tony scrubbed his forehead with the back of his wrist. He could already feel the sick hot/cold sensation of a building fever.

No. Focus. There had to be something he could do. Had they all been captured simply because they'd been trespassing on someone's very well-guarded land, or had the Minotaurs been waiting for the portal to deliver them? That cute little trick with the soporific moss suggested the latter. So maybe… _maybe_ there was sophisticated tech around here somewhere, and he just hadn't seen it yet.

The prisoners had been collected and marked, indicative of an extended stay. There was a way out of any trap, if he could live long enough to find it.

The group sitting closest to him consisted of a man and woman in their thirties. Spouses, Tony guessed. The woman caught his eye and nodded at the leather sack beside him.

He investigated. It turned out to be a full canteen with a shoulder strap. Cautiously, he uncorked it and sampled the contents.

It was water. The first mouthful was tepid and had a faintly bitter aftertaste, but Tony quickly decided that he didn't care, and drank deeply.

He turned back to the woman to thank her, but she quickly put her finger to her lips before he had the chance. She pointed to the guards, and Tony nodded: message received. That explained why the entire group was eerily silent.

One of the Minotaurs called out a command in a deep, guttural voice, and if this was a Star Trek episode, then it was one that predated the universal translator. Some of the guards started yanking people to their feet and chivvying them into line, and Tony wanted no part of _that_. He clenched his teeth against the pain and rolled up onto one knee.

His new friend, bless her, came up beside him and let him sling his good arm over her shoulders, and they made it the rest of the way to vertical together. She tapped her finger to her lips again, which made Tony wonder just what the hell had happened to the last person who'd spoken up.

The guard at the head of the line called out another command, and they all began to walk.

 

* * *

 

The forced march lasted three days.

On the first night, a small group tried to make a run for it. Tony wasn't consulted or asked to join — not that he blamed anyone for that, given his condition. However, if someone _had_ asked him, the first thing he would have done was check to make sure they'd noticed the second layer of perimeter guards.

As it was, the prospective escapees found them the hard way. Then they found out that the Minos carried lashes as well as swords.

After that, despair began to seep through the prisoners like a slow poison. There was no escape. There was no rescue. With each day that passed, they missed another portal. Sooner or later, the final window would come and go, and they would be trapped here forever.

They walked.

Three times a day, they were fed some kind of mush with the approximate consistency of mashed potatoes. It tasted like nothing.

The bitter taste in Tony's water ration grew stronger. He guessed that it was being dosed with something, although he shuddered to imagine what. At any rate, he sweated and shivered his way through a persistent high fever, but never quite slipped into delirium.

His left side was a lurid mess of bruises. Every breath came with a stab of pain. The ache in his arm subsided to tolerable levels as long as he kept it perfectly still, but it lit up spectacularly any time he had to change positions. The rest of the cuts and burns and bruises were minor by comparison, and by the second day they'd all sort of blended together into a baseline level of discomfort.

Casual chitchat was answered with a casual backhand from the nearest guard. Tony watched some poor bastard hit the ground after getting swatted like a fly, and knew in his cowardly heart of hearts that the internal damage he was sporting could not handle another bad landing like that. He kept his mouth shut.

At night, the Minos built up campfires and dropped large bundles of blankets for distribution. The woman who'd helped Tony on the first day (he'd designated her 'Water Lady' at first, which then morphed into 'Lily') was joined by a small rota of people who were willing to bring him a blanket and help him stand up or sit down. He was deeply and silently grateful.

They walked.

Tony absolutely did not spend even a second thinking about how Champaign would have gone if he'd had backup. He didn't replay the evacuation over and over in his mind, imagining how a coordinated team could have gotten the job done more efficiently. Not once did he consider how the Avengers at full strength would have been more than a match for sixty-odd besworded Minotaurs. How, if the worst had still come to pass and they'd all been taken, at least the whole group together would have had a fighting chance to—

No. He wasn't thinking about that at all.

He also wasn't wasting any time wondering just what the hell had caused his suit to go completely haywire. Never mind that he'd designed it to handle far more punishment than a couple bolts of lightning. Never mind that electronic equipment built to live a few inches from his _face_ had quad-redundant surge protection and should not have been physically capable of exploding the way it had. He wasn't dwelling on it. What would have been the use?

And above all, he didn't dare imagine how Rhodey was taking the news that he'd gone missing. Or Pepper. He didn't… he couldn't. He couldn't.

They walked.

 

* * *

 

On the third day, about midway through the morning hike, Tony discovered that the texture of the ground beneath his feet had changed. He looked up and found that they were crossing a massive suspension bridge. The deck was made of wooden planks, and a tall wood fence on either side kept him from seeing exactly what they were crossing over.

On the other side of the bridge was a dirt road, which was a welcome change from the narrow, rocky footpaths that they'd been treading before. Tony stole a look over his shoulder, and found that they'd been descending through the foothills of a vast mountain range. The forest foliage covered its lower slopes in patterned shades of green. Off in the distance, jagged peaks burst their way up through the trees and disappeared into the clouds.

The bridge had taken them across a ravine that extended in both directions as far as Tony could see. It was deep enough that he could only just make out the sound of rushing water, somewhere far below. The Minos closed ranks around the line of prisoners until they were long out of sight of the edge. There would be no taking the quick way out.

They walked, then stopped for the midday break, then walked again.

Tony's head was starting to clear a little. It usually did around this time of day, during the few hours' window when the drugs (he guessed) had battled his fever back and before the fatigue of a twenty-mile march rendered him near-catatonic again. He was still more or less with it about an hour later when the forest gave way to another clearing.

The open space in front of him was roughly circular, maybe half a mile in diameter, and obviously artificial. Massive tree stumps near the circumference were evidence of recent logging efforts. To Tony's left, about a quarter of the way along the perimeter, a felled tree was in the process of being sawed into lumber by a group of human prisoners, supervised by more Mino guards.

Oh goody. They were in a labor camp.

Directly in front of him, near the centre of the clearing, was a loose cluster of buildings, all built from wood (Tony was pretty sure he could guess what this economy's primary export was). They were varied in size and primitive in design, none more than two stories high. In the distance, a pillar of white smoke rose into the air — a cooking fire, maybe.

No vehicles, no electricity, no tech of any kind. Nothing that could possibly help them get home.

He tried, he really, _really_ tried not to take this place as a death blow to their hopes of seeing Earth again. _Someone_ on this side knew how to track the portals. He had to believe that. He just… he had to stay alive for long enough to find a way out of here, track down whoever was in charge, take their tech, come back, break the rest of the prisoners out of camp, and get to a portal before it was too late.

(Like it wasn't already too late. Like this entire notion of an escape plan wasn't so wildly far-fetched that it bordered on delusional.)

Watch and wait. It was all he had left. He kept moving forward.

Once the entire group was out of the trees, the lead Mino halted the procession. Tony just had time to wonder what the holdup was when… _something_ came crawling into view.

By volume, it was approximately human-sized, but there the similarities ended. It was built roughly along the lines of a scorpion: a low-set, segmented body supported on many legs, heavy pincers up front, and a thick tail arching up over its back. Two more sets of pincers, longer and more delicate than the first, were folded across the thing's back, behind the protrusion that Tony guessed was its head, although he couldn't discern eyes or a mouth. Its tail was bifurcated, and each segment was covered in long, dark bristles. The rest of its body was a uniform, greasy sort of grey.

In short, it was fucking ugly.

The Mino brought his fist to his chest in a salute, because _of course_ the hideous giant alien scorpion was also the boss.

Was _this_ one of the tech-savvy locals? Jesus _Christ_.

The Minotaur went through the recognizable motions of delivering an after-action report. The scorpion gave its response by rattling the bristles on its tails in a complicated rhythm. Then it took a leisurely inspection skitter down the line of prisoners ( _tooclosetooclose_ ), and finally vanished into the forest.

Tony had wondered about the lack of a perimeter fence. But he guessed that anyone would think twice about a midnight stroll now.

The scorpion had appeared from behind the building closest to them, which was set some distance away from the others. It was a single story high, square in shape, and large enough to hold, say, four large conference rooms. There was one door that Tony could see, and no windows. The guards got the line moving again, and this building was clearly their destination.

The prisoners were ushered in, and Tony found himself in a waiting room. It took up one half of the building, and was unfurnished except for wooden benches that lined the walls. The interior was lit by three skylights. They were, oddly, bordered by vines, and covered by some kind of thin, transparent film that infused the sunlight with gentle undertones of blue and green.

It was the first thing Tony had seen in this world that struck him as beautiful.

In the opposite corner from where they'd had come in was another door that presumably led to the rest of the building. While the other prisoners were directed to the benches, Tony was seized by his good arm — which, to be clear, still hurt like hell — and dragged through to the next room.

He'd seen the waiting room, and now he was looking at the doctor's office. There was a raised bench against one wall, fitted with a sheet, that obviously served as an examination table. The opposite wall was furnished with countertops, cabinets and drawers. Jars of various shapes and sizes sat on the counter, and metal instruments were laid out neatly on trays, absolutely none of which Tony was prepared to examine closely.

And as if that weren't enough to sent his heart rate through the roof, the room also came equipped with a doctor.

She looked, at first glance, like a human. Short brown hair, brown eyes, pale skin, no horns or scales or other obvious giveaways. He put her in her late twenties, maybe early thirties. Her right arm ended just below the elbow, which Tony couldn't help but read as a bad omen. Her cheek hadn't been branded, but she had been marked: five evenly spaced scars ran the length of her face from hairline to jaw, giving her the appearance of looking out at the world from behind bars.

Maybe the Minos used different scars to designate different classes of prisoner. A woman with one hand would make a poor lumberjack, but if she had a medical background, they could have found a different use for her.

That theory took a hit the moment she opened her mouth. She issued an order to the Mino in his own language, and her tone made it clear that she was speaking from a position of authority. In response, the guard reached for some kind of blade on the counter and _no_ , not like this, not without a fight, he could—

Do absolutely nothing, as it turned out. He'd barely even shifted his weight when Lefty closed the gap between them with startling speed and grabbed his right wrist. Tony froze.

Not because he wanted to, or because he was coming unglued that badly. He froze because his body had ceased to be under his control.

Tony looked down at where Lefty was gripping him, his eyeballs being the only part of him still responding to orders. _Okay. Not human, then_.

He hung motionless in her grasp while the Mino used what turned out to be a pair of shears to strip his clothes. Naked and helpless — which was his least favorite kind of helpless, and for that matter, his least favorite kind of naked — Tony watched as his body walked itself over to the exam bed and sat itself down, courtesy of whatever fucking thing Lefty was doing to him.

She let go of his wrist once he was seated, and gross motor control came flooding back so quickly that he nearly jolted himself onto the floor.

Lefty issued another order to the guard. He answered back with some displeasure, but—

No. Hold on. This was unbearable. If there were going to be lengthy conversations now, Tony had to put in some subtitles.

" 'I'm starting to think the Spice Girls are never getting back together,' " Big Mino said glumly.

" 'Actually, one _does_ simply walk into Mordor,' " Lefty replied, and waved her hand in an obvious dismissal. The guard turned and stumped out.

And yeah, Tony recognized that there was a certain level of… of hysterical detachment happening to him right now, and maybe that was something he should have found alarming, except… well, hysterical detachment. Because the alternative was dealing with the fact that they were entering the horrifically primitive medical treatment portion of this particular nightmare, and maybe a log cabin wasn't quite the same as a cave, but he'd still been through this already, okay, and it was _over_ , it was supposed to be _over_ —

Lefty turned and spoke over her shoulder and _holy shit_ there was a third person in the room. He'd been standing still as a shadow in the far corner, past a particularly medieval-looking metal contraption on the counter that had apparently given Tony some hysterical blindness to go along with everything else. At Lefty's command, he detached himself from the wall and began assembling a fresh tray of future horrors.

Oddly, Lefty's next move was to take a step back — not far enough that Tony had a hope of getting past her, given her powers and how damned fast she was, but enough that they were out of arm's reach of each other. She cocked her head slightly and just… looked at him with a faint frown on her face, like she was trying to work out a puzzle.

He hadn't said a word in three days. But in this room, a beating was the least alarming thing that could happen to him. He didn't care if it was a futile gesture. He had to stall.

"Okay, so it's skin contact? That's your thing?" Tony could hear his own voice shaking, and _fuck_ , he hated how terrified he sounded. "Handy trick. Oh, I'm sorry, was that offensive?"

She didn't react to the jibe, but Igor twitched and quickly averted his eyes. A- _ha_.

Tony took a closer look at… okay, no. Not 'Igor'. The kid was in his early twenties, with dark brown skin and close-cropped black hair. He was shorter than Tony, with a slender build and a well-healed brand on his face. Not taken in the last few days, then. He'd been living this life for a hell of a lot longer than that.

He finished whatever his assigned task had been, and moved up to a predictably deferential position behind his boss's left shoulder. His expression was one of knowing sympathy — not an 'oh you poor bastard, you have no idea what's in store for you' look, but an 'I know this sucks, but you'll get through it' look.

_Jim_ , Tony decided. _Until we're properly introduced, I'm calling you Jim_.

Lefty was still giving him the eyeball. Tony eyeballed her right back.

"You know, back home we have these things called hospital gowns," he said. "You might want to look into it. They're marginally less humiliating than this." Still nothing. "You think I'm gonna stop? I've met a few girls with one eyebrow before… never thought—"

"Hsst!" she said, and snapped her fingers together in a clear 'shut your trap' gesture.

He shut his trap.

She gave a short exhalation that was somewhere between a sigh and a very dry chuckle, then touched her hand to her chest and said, "Kel."

Well. Not the response he'd been expecting. Mostly on reflex, Tony mirrored her gesture. "To—"

But that earned him another _Hsst_. Kel touched her cheek where the brand would have been, then made a sharp negative gesture.

It didn't read as a rebuke so much as a warning, and Tony gave a curt nod of acknowledgment.

Kel then pointed to the makeshift bandage on his arm, and twirled her finger in a circle.

_Shitfuck_. "Actually," Tony said, and oh look, his voice was shaking again, "I think I'm gonna keep it the way it is. Bones on the outside instead of the inside — it'll be the hot new fashion inside of a month, cutting edge, you'll see—"

In one fluid motion, Kel stepped in, tapped him lightly on the shoulder, and stepped back again. The entire arm went suddenly, completely, _blissfully_ numb.

The abrupt cessation of pain left Tony light-headed and stammering. "What the— that was— _that_ — oh," he finally managed.

Kel took another long step away from him, then reached behind her and produced a dagger from a concealed sheath on her back. (Mixed messages, Tony was getting some seriously mixed messages here.) She passed it to Jim, hilt-first, who held it steady while she casually skewered her hand on the blade.

Before Tony could work out how the fuck he was supposed to react to _that_ , Jim grabbed a sheet of something that looked like seaweed out of a drawer, and used it to mop up the blood. Kel then stepped in closer and held out the back of her hand for Tony's inspection. In the space of maybe fifteen seconds, the gash knit itself closed until no trace of injury remained.

Tony drew his good hand down his face. "So what you're suggesting," he said carefully, "is that you can do _that_ —" he pointed at her hand "—to _this_." He gestured at the bandages.

Kel nodded.

He felt like his brain was trying to tear itself in half. On the one side was the dawning, desperate hope that maybe this wasn't going to be a butchering session after all. That maybe Kel really could fix him, and do it without inordinate amounts of carnage.

On the other side was good old-fashioned xenophobic terror at just how _not_ human she really was. He'd never seen a power like hers before. He had no idea how it functioned or what its limits were, or how to assess the implications of allowing it to go crawling around inside him.

Not that _allow_ was even the right word, was it? Kel had made it clear that she could do anything she liked to him and he had no way of stopping her. Her current interest in securing his cooperation was a polite fiction at best.

Yielding gracefully to the inevitable was not a Stark strong suit. On the other hand, he really, really didn't want to die of alien sepsis on the wrong side of a fucking portal.

Kel betrayed not a trace of impatience during this internal debate. Finally, moving very slowly and regretting every second of it, Tony unwound the layers of rags from his forearm. It looked every bit as bad as he remembered, and smelled worse.

"All right," he said. "Do your thing."

The steps were recognizable, even if some of the tools were strange. After careful scrutiny and a bit of very delicate touching, Kel directed him to lie down on his back with his arm stretched out beside him. She and Jim bathed their hands and the wound in some kind of green slime that looked awful but smelled antiseptic. Between them, they wrestled the broken bones back into alignment. Kel stuck a needle into the vein in Tony's elbow and drew a blood sample, which she sent with Jim to the other side of the room to do something outside of Tony's line of sight. Then she flushed out the wound thoroughly, washing away debris and draining the infection. By the time that was done to her satisfaction, Jim had returned with a jar of some kind of salve, also tinged green, which Kel layered over the wound and covered with fresh bandaging.

She spoke to Jim at some length, then gave a deliberate nod in Tony's direction.

Jim said to him, in accented but understandable English, "The infection is being treated with antibiotics. You'll come back tomorrow to have the bandage changed. She's going to mend the bones now. There will be pressure. Be still."

It took Tony a second to place the accent, but then it clicked: Jim was deaf. "So you're the nurse and the translator, huh?" he said, taking care to enunciate.

Jim shot Kel a look that Tony wasn't sure how to decipher. She spoke again, and gave him the nod again.

"We may not speak without permission," Jim said. "If you disobey, the guards will punish you. Here…" He paused, and after another glance at Kel, amended, "When we're alone here, it's safe, but forgetting the rules can be dangerous."

Another warning — or arguably a few warnings rolled into one.

Oh, and about that whole 'pressure' thing: Kel closed her hand around Tony's wrist, and in the vicinity of the break, an invisible band began to tighten around his forearm to the point of discomfort, although not outright pain. Kel shut her eyes, and lines of concentration creased her forehead. Apparently knitting someone else's bones together was a tougher job than closing up her own soft tissue.

The process took several minutes, which Tony actually found comforting, since it showed that Kel's powers had limits. Eventually, the tightness began to fade, and regular sensation slowly returned to his arm. The site of the break was somewhat sore, but that was a day at the spa compared to the pain he'd been in an hour ago.

At Kel's gesture, Tony tentatively flexed his wrist and elbow. Everything seemed to be in good working order. As repair jobs went, he had to admit that this one had been top-notch. Alien and unnerving and inexplicable, but in a high-quality way.

She targeted his busted ribs next, and if having an invisible vise squeeze his forearm was uncomfortable, having it happen somewhere inside his guts was nightmarish. It was the exact same pressure-not-pain that had happened before, and he wasn't enjoying it but he could handle it, he _was_ handling it, until—

_weight on his chest and bloody bandages and metal oh god what_

—and his fist lashed out before he could stop it.

Kel leaned back adroitly and he missed her by a hair.

It didn't turn into a full-fledged freak-out — just enough of a burst to leave him shuddery and sweating and feeling the wrong shape for his skin. Fucking panic attack bullshit.

It also left him rolled up partway onto his side, his arm hanging pointlessly across his body and off the table, and they'd had an almost civil run of things for a while there, but taking a swing at the camp medic had to be a punishable offense, right?

Kel didn't look pissed, though. She paused for a moment with her problem-solving expression back on, then poked him lightly in the shoulder until he settled onto his back again. Then she picked up his left hand, and after a bit of awkward fumbling, he got the idea that she wanted him to hold onto her wrist.

Again: not the response he'd been expecting.

She even waited patiently until he made the choice to bring her hand back into contact with his side. The pressure ramped up a lot more slowly this time, and between that and the perception — however fake — that he was in control, the process turned into something bearable.

Tony wasn't exactly complaining that she was attempting to be considerate, but it did pose an interesting puzzle. People who were willing to spare a thought for consent and bodily autonomy and such did not, as a general rule, take jobs in labor camps. Kel obviously wasn't Black Hat — too short, too alien, too long-established in this place — but she didn't quite fit in her role, either.

_We have people there_ , the kids in the car had told him. It was a hypothesis that fit the facts, at least, but he had no idea how they hell they could have pulled it off.

Her patch job on his ribcage took longer than the one on his arm had, but by the end of it, the bruising had receded considerably and he could breathe without pain. Tony sat up, and registered only a faint twinge of residual soreness.

Okay. Maybe he was a little impressed.

The rest of the appointment was far more mundane. Kel used a different green-tinged salve on the brand, which stung like hell for a few seconds but quickly went numb. Then she went methodically over the rest of his cuts and scrapes, washing each one clean and stitching or bandaging when necessary. Jim stood next to her and served as her second hand; the two of them worked together with the fluidity of long practice. This process was followed by a physical exam, and capped off with a round of injections that left his ass feeling like a pincushion.

When Kel finally finished having her way with him, she pointed down the length of the room to another door.

"At least tell me there are _clothes_ in—"

Tony broke off in surprise when Kel cuffed him lightly across the face. It was an open-handed slap, not nearly hard enough to sting, and she followed it up by pressing his mouth firmly closed.

" 'Out there,' " she said severely, " 'they're all Team Edward. Every single one.' "

Or, he supposed, if he rendered it a little less facetiously, it would come out as, " 'If you keep talking, the guards will make you regret it.' "

He jerked his face out of her grip and came _thisclose_ to telling her to fuck off, but managed to swallow the impulse in favor of repeating her 'mouth closed' gesture.

Kel locked eyes with Jim for a second, and some kind of communication passed between them that Tony couldn't interpret. Then she turned away from them both and focused her attention on cleaning up the exam table for her next patient.

Jim walked him to the exit door. Before opening it, he paused, leaned in close, and whispered into Tony's ear, "Twenty months. Stay alive. We have a plan."

 


	5. Chapter 5

Tony learned a great deal during his first week on the other side, but no piece of information was as critical as the discovery that the Denver and Mt. Hood abductees were all _here_ , conveniently gathered in the same camp. Given how far the portal had traveled between its appearances, he'd held out little hope of collecting up all three groups unless he first figured out where this planet was stashing its jet planes. For once, though, it turned out that the work had been done for him. Several of the missing people had been profiled in the news, and Tony remembered each of their faces, about a dozen in all. By his fourth day on-site, he'd spotted every single one.

That wasn't even the weird part. The weird part was that, excepting the twenty who'd arrived from Champaign, every human in the camp had clearly been there for months.

The brands told the story. After seven days, Tony's wasn't terribly sore anymore, but it had scabbed over in a nasty way and it itched like mad. The Denver crowd, who by all rights had been here at most twenty-four hours longer, should have been in approximately the same state. And yet every face bore a thick line of scar tissue that had long since healed over.

As bizarre as it was, the only conclusion he could come to was that time was somehow running faster here. Maybe a _lot_ faster. That would also explain the blueshifted light he'd seen from the other side of the portal: it was the electromagnetic equivalent of speeding up an audio file and turning it into an Alvin and the Chipmunks recording.

On Earth, the portals opened every twenty-four hours in widely separated locations. On this side, maybe it was mirrored: the portals opened in nearby locations, widely separated in time.

If all that was true, then every passing day here wasn't another missed opportunity to go home after all. _Twenty months_ , Jim had told him. Was that how long they had to wait until the next window? The thought of almost two years at hard labor was horrific, but at least it was better than the lifetime they would all be condemned to once the portals stopped.

Primary goals, then: confirm his theory, identify exploitable flaws in camp security, and determine who else was part of Jim's — and, presumably, Black Hat's — infiltration team.

But back up a few steps.

That first night, Tony was in fact given clothes before he left the infirmary building. The prisoner uniform consisted of trousers and a jacket made from something akin to denim, plus socks, shorts and a T-shirt in a lighter fabric. He was also issued a pair of boots made from some kind of animal hide. Each piece was undyed, and seemed to have been designed for efficient mass production rather than things like style or comfort.

Next, a Mino led him to a row of one-story buildings that looked like dormitories, because that was what they were. The one he was sent inside contained two rows of ten single beds, some with blankets but most with bare mattresses. Another Mino handed him an armful of bedding and gestured for him to pick an unclaimed bed.

They preferred skylights over windows in this place, and every skylight was surrounded by those same dark green vines that he'd seen in the infirmary. It was an odd choice, as interior decor went. The vines in the dorm were interconnected, and a thick green stem ran down one wall to the ground, where it disappeared through a crack in the wood floor.

If that crack let in a draft, he was going to have some serious words with the landlord.

The evening meal was served outside. The prisoners ate at picnic benches that were arranged along one side of what Tony decided to call the town square. The dorms formed a second side; opposite from them were more wood buildings whose functions Tony hadn't seen yet, and the fourth side was open, facing out toward the infirmary, and beyond that, the forest.

The food was better than what they'd gotten on the road inasmuch as there was more than one kind of it, but fundamentally, it was still mush. The greenish mush was somewhat… vegetablish in taste, and the whitish mush was somewhat potatoish, and that was as much as contemplation of _that_ topic as Tony could bear.

He was recognized. He could tell from the looks he got — mostly shock and dismay. There were a couple that read like resentment, and Tony quietly tagged those people as possible Black Hat candidates.

The ones that made him duck his head away while the back of his neck grew hot with shame were the looks of hope. Like he was the leading edge of some kind of rescue effort. Like he was here because he'd chosen to be, and not because he'd egregiously fucked up.

Lily and her husband joined him for dinner, which was kind of them and helped him to tune out the scrutiny. Lily gaped at him in astonishment when she first saw him, and for a second Tony couldn't figure out why until — oh, right, a few hours ago he'd been dying. She clucked over his bandaged arm, and actually made him lift his shirt up to show her his ribs. Tony hooked his thumb toward the infirmary, and for emphasis, ran five fingers down his face. Lily frowned in confusion; Tony shrugged.

Yeah. Scintillating dinner conversation.

Tony spotted Jim a few benches over, and made a note of who he was sitting with, although he had to assume that this as-yet-unconfirmed team wouldn't make their allegiances that obvious. Kel did not put in an appearance, not that he'd particularly expected her to.

The next critical fact, discovered around sundown when the prisoners were ordered back to their dorms, and Tony found practically between one step and the next that he could barely keep his eyes open, was that the evening meal was drugged.

Which seemed to him to be pretty fucking risky on account of… dosages, and body weights, and… and long-term side-effects, and…

He collapsed onto his mattress and slept like the dead.

 

* * *

 

Critical fact number whatever: the prisoners weren't lumberjacks. They were miners.

They were rousted at sunrise the next morning. Tony started off his day being summoned by Jim to the infirmary, where Kel rebandaged his arm as promised. Whether through the medications or her more… direct intervention, the gash had been reduced to a shallow scrape with no sign of infection. His other little aches and pains had significantly diminished as well.

She addressed what few injuries still needed tending, and sent him back in plenty of time to eat breakfast with the rest of the group (Tony tried not to view that as a punishment), after which the Minos formed them up into lines and marched them to the northern border of the camp. Just beyond the deforested perimeter, the terrain grew rockier and took on an upward gradient. About twenty of the prisoners were split off and directed toward a nearby cluster of buildings. The rest, including Tony, walked a short, well-traveled path up the hill, where they found shovels, pickaxes, wagons and carts of various sizes, and a tunnel leading down into the rock.

Critical fact number whatever plus one: they did have technology on this planet, and it was plants.

The lights, for instance, were plants. At the entrance to the mine was a much thicker version of the vine stalk that Tony had seen in his dorm. It ran up the tunnel wall and extended along the ceiling, where it sprouted leaves and clung to the rock by tiny tendrils. A tall woman picked up a covered pitcher from beside the root and poured out a healthy measure of liquid over it. A few seconds later, the closest leaves began to shine with a bright, blue-white glow. The effect gradually spread along the length of the vine, lighting up the tunnel as effectively as any fluorescent office lights could have done. Later, Tony would learn that more long stems branched off the vine and ran up through the ventilation shafts, sprouting broad, corrugated leaves when they reached the surface.

Photosynthesis converted to bioluminescence in the presence of a catalyst. It was a rather elegant design, actually. And it could have only been a deliberate design: as a natural organism, the plant made no sense whatsoever.

In retrospect, the moss that released knockout spores had to be more of the same — a bioengineered trap. And the antibiotics that Kel had at her disposal were obviously a lot more sophisticated than Fleming's moldy bread, considering that one treatment had cured his infected arm overnight.

The prisoners were given air filtration masks — which was lucky, because otherwise Tony would have had some very sharp words to say on the subject of black lung — and the masks were plants: green, webby things that sealed tight to the skin around his mouth and nose in a way that was awfully claustrophobic at first. But somehow they didn't impede his breathing at all, and they even left the air smelling faintly of mint. At the midday break, and again at the end of the day, Tony followed the example of his fellow workers and dabbed his mask with a rag soaked in some clear liquid that smelled like vinegar. It promptly shriveled up and fell away, joining the natural organic debris on the forest floor.

So it was clear that he'd been partly right: this planet did have engineers, only they were bioengineers.

(Bioengineer… _scorpions_. What the fuck. Unless it was the Minos building all these things, but so far they hadn't struck Tony as terribly deep thinkers.)

The tunnel descended into the ground in wide spirals. It sprouted a few side passages here and there, now blocked off, where Tony assumed that pockets of whatever they were digging for had been exhausted. After three revolutions, it opened up into a large excavated chamber, lit with more vine-lights. Running the length of one wall was a seam of some kind of metallic ore.

Too bad. He'd been hoping for exotic gemstones, if only for the novelty factor.

About twenty Minos accompanied them down into the mine, while a handful more remained above ground. Their supervisory style turned out to be surprisingly hands-off, though. They spread themselves out along the line and kept watch, leaving the more experienced prisoners to take charge of the newcomers. Tony wound up next to a burly giant of a guy, who indicated with brusque gestures that he should avoid the silver veins where, he guessed, the metal content was highest, and instead should aim his pickaxe at the darker grey regions where the ore fused with the surrounding rock.

Okay. Sure. He could do that.

A handful of blows later, when he accidentally struck a piece of the vein and his pick rebounded and damn near stunned him between the eyes, Tony realized that he was in a _vibranium_ mine.

And — wow, so many associations there that he was _not_ thinking about. So many of them, in fact, that he had to step back for a second and carefully not think about each one in turn.

A vibranium mine. Unbelievable. Tony took another look at the size of the seam and ran some quick production calculations and — well, obviously it depended on the percent yield of pure vibranium from the ore, but even with conservative estimates, this place probably put out, say, a couple of Visions' worth of it daily. Those numbers were tiny compared with the reserves that Wakanda was rumored to have, but anywhere else on Earth? _Damn_.

He supposed, then, that the complex of buildings nearby was some kind of processing facility, and wouldn't he love to get a look at _that_ place.

Tony's work buddy gave him a meaningful nudge. Right. There would be plenty of opportunities to stir up trouble in the days to come, but for the moment it was more useful to stay under the radar.

He hefted his pickaxe again, and joined his efforts to the din that echoed through the cavern.

 

* * *

 

The days settled into a simple pattern of work and sleep, and soon Tony had another entry for his list of critical facts: this was a labor camp, not a death camp.

The prisoners were given adequate food and water. Shifts were physically taxing, but not damagingly so. Their working conditions were frankly safer than plenty that could be found on Earth. The Mino supervisors carried lashes, but none of them had used one yet in Tony's presence, and they even seemed to be making allowances for the fact that most of the new arrivals didn't have the physical conditioning for full-time manual labor. People stopped for breath. They helped each other. The work slowed down while the veterans taught the new recruits. None of this elicited punishment.

If it hadn't been for the fact that they'd been _kidnapped_ and _branded_ and _enslaved_ , it would have been almost civilized.

The more Tony thought about the arrangement — and he had nothing on his hands _but_ time to think — the more pissed off he got. The forced march had impressed on everyone just how brutal their situation could be, so that sustainable working hours and beds to sleep in started to look like perks. Like _favors_. Escape from captivity meant trading in all those little creature comforts for the harsh conditions of an alien wilderness and, no doubt, pursuit by the soldiers. Wasn't it safer, then, for everyone to just stay put and behave?

It wasn't so far off from how Kel ran her infirmary, for that matter. _Are you having a rough time? Here — I'll speak gently, and hold your hand, and take your pain away. By the way, I could hijack your nervous system at any moment and there'd be nothing you could do to stop me. I'm not doing it_ now _, though. Isn't that_ nice _of me? See how cooperation makes both of us happy?_

It was a cheap but effective psychological trap. And after a week on this shithole of a planet, Tony still had no idea how idea how he was going to get himself or anyone else out of it.

Black Hat remained a mystery. Several people in camp had roughly the height and the skin tone that Tony had seen in the footage, but so far he hadn't been able to narrow down the list any further. The prisoners were supervised practically every waking moment, and those waking moments themselves were strictly regimented, which left him no opportunity to sound out any of his candidates. Neither Jim nor anyone else had approached him with additional information, and he hadn't caught so much as a whisper of an escape plan or other subversive activity.

As far as his own subversive activity went, Tony hadn't had much success there, either. After that first day of work, he'd taken the obvious step of discreetly not eating dinner, in the hopes of getting a look at the camp after nightfall.

He hadn't seen Lily all day, and the reason turned out to be that she'd been assigned to the kitchen rather than the mine. She came rushing up to him after dinner and, rather to his alarm, went up on tiptoes and threw her arms around his neck.

"It won't work," she whispered into his ear. "It's in every meal. Time-released."

Tony had never heard her voice before.

He awkwardly patted her on the back — yep, just the natural enthusiasm of friendship formed under arduous circumstances, nothing weird going on here — and asked, "Can you sabotage it?"

She shook her head slightly. "Watched all the time."

They disentangled themselves. Tony tried to convey with a nod and a shrug that he believed her, but he had to try it anyway. Lily nodded back.

Mr. Lily, who would have been within his rights to take a dim view of these goings-on, instead offered Tony a companionable pat on the arm when he came by to collect his wife. The two of them retired to their dorm, three buildings down from Tony's. The rest of the prisoners followed suit shortly thereafter.

Sure enough, Tony was out like a light by sundown, and as a bonus, he got to spend most of the subsequent day hungry enough to gnaw his own foot off.

So _that_ hadn't worked.

It was obvious that any kind of resistance effort was going to take a coordinated team (...still not thinking about it), and even then, there were a staggering number of obstacles that stood between them and getting home. And then had come the worst thought of all: what if Jim's talk of twenty months wasn't part of a genuine escape plan, but was just another component of their captors' trap? By offering hope of a rescue somewhere in the future, they discouraged rebellion now. _We have a plan. It's under control. Just play along for now, and let someone else take care of it_. The workers worked, and meanwhile, the portals stopped.

Tony hoped he was wrong. But he couldn't just wait around complacently for the next twenty months on the basis of hope and three whispered sentences. If he couldn't find some conclusive evidence of an escape plan soon, he was going to have to try something… more drastic.

 

* * *

 

It took less than an hour for Maria to report back with her findings. "I'll spare you the sound bites that are already all over the news," she said as she took her seat in Pepper's office. "Inter-agency task force, top experts working around the clock, no avenue left unexplored — you know the drill."

"Have they made any progress?" Pepper asked.

"The appropriate response to the phenomenon is still under active debate," Maria said, and her tone was bone-dry. "Some want to send an armed extraction team through the next portal, some want to fire every piece of ordnance they can get their hands on at it — to what intended effect besides making a very loud 'bang', I couldn't say — and some want to write off the abductees as lost, evacuate the target area, and keep the hell away from it. Unfortunately, the entire argument is academic because, as was made abundantly clear in Chicago, the task force still can't predict where the next portal will appear."

No. Pepper refused to believe that the situation was that bad. "Are you saying that not even Jane Foster can get a handle on how this thing is moving?"

Maria's lip twisted. "Jane Foster has an unfortunate reputation for sharing her findings with the scientific community. Plus, her boyfriend's an alien. In the interest of national security—"

"It's a question of _global_ security!" Pepper protested. "There's no reason to believe that the phenomenon will be confined to the US."

"Hey, preaching to the choir," said Maria. "I'm just telling you what I've heard. Secretary Ross doesn't trust Thor, and therefore he doesn't trust Foster. She's out."

Pepper took a slow breath and tried to clear away her frustration. Anger couldn't help Tony or the other abductees. Facts could. "Do you have any good news?" she asked.

"One piece of good news, one piece of interesting news." Maria scrolled down on her tablet. "Air samples taken from the portal sites have turned up some exotic biochemical signatures and slightly elevated oxygen levels, but nothing toxic. Best guess: on the other side is a planet with a breathable atmosphere and some kind of plant life."

Pepper had to close her eyes against a sudden upwelling of tears.

One time — and it had been very clear that this conversation was never going to happen again — Tony had managed to tell her what he'd seen on the other side of the portal in New York. How he'd found himself adrift in space in a suit drained of power, and had, with what he'd thought to be his final breaths, seen the amassed Chitauri army, waiting to descend on Earth and pick it clean.

If this portal had also led to some empty corner of outer space… if Tony had died in the vacuum, alone…

Pepper had carefully banished the thought to the furthest corner of her mind. The universe couldn't have been so cruel as that. It wouldn't dare. But the fear had stayed with her, even so — until now.

"Thank you," she said quietly, and dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. "What's the interesting news?"

"The task force can't track the portals," Maria said, politely ignoring the tissue, "but someone out there can."

Pepper looked up sharply. "What? Who?"

"Unknown. But at least ten Champaign households received a phone call that warned them about a gas leak in their neighborhood and instructed them to evacuate the area. The calls were placed between twenty and thirty minutes before the portal arrived. Everyone who got a call would have been taken if they had still been at home."

Her stomach tensed with sudden excitement. Someone out there had information and was trying to help. It was exactly what she needed. "I take it the caller hasn't been found yet."

Maria shook her head. "Whoever did it covered their tracks so well that the NSA still hasn't unraveled the source. The task force is trying to keep this out of the media, since otherwise they'll have to admit that they don't know who's responsible, but I'm not sure how much longer that'll hold up."

"All right." They had to do this quickly, and they had to do it right. "Set up a secure and anonymous online data drop. No traps and no tricks. Someone who's this good is going to check it out before making contact. I'm going to spread the word that Stark Industries is willing to help in any way we can."

She watched Maria draw breath to ask a question — probably some variant on _Are you sure you want to do that?_ — and then think the better of it. "I'll get the InfoSec department on it," Maria said neutrally. "Do you need anything else?"

"Not right now, Maria, thank you," Pepper said, "but please keep me informed."

Maria pushed back her chair and headed for the door, stopping just before the threshold. "Pepper—"

"This is a long shot and I shouldn't get my hopes up?" she hazarded.

Maria smiled wryly. "I would never tell you that," she said. "But I do want to point out that, whoever our portal chaser is, their anonymity is more important to them than sharing critical information with the relevant authorities during a state of emergency. That tells me they're hiding a very big secret. I'd just as soon not have that secret come back to bite us in the ass."

"A lot of us have secrets," Pepper said. "And I think we can handle a few teeth marks if it'll help bring a hundred and twenty people home."

Maria tilted her head noncommittally, and didn't press the point. "I'll let you know what turns up."

 

* * *

 

The last time Natasha had seen Steve, she'd been trapped between trying one last time to make him see reason, and electrocuting the king of Wakanda (hopefully T'Challa wasn't holding a grudge). The time before that, he'd just finished ignoring her _very_ sensible advice in favor of neutralizing a UN-sanctioned special response team and getting himself arrested.

So when Steve stepped out of Clint's car wearing the grimly determined expression of a man who would be throwing himself into the next available interdimensional portal and to hell with the consequences… well, Natasha couldn't exactly say she was surprised.

"Hey, stranger," she said, and stepped forward to accept his embrace. "Long time, no see."

"Hey, yourself," Steve replied.

She clasped hands with Sam, and greeted Wanda with a cautious nod. Sam looked somber, but composed. Wanda, meanwhile, carefully maintained her distance from the rest of the group, and her face and hands were unsettled. Her contact with the portal seemed to have taken a toll, and Natasha made a note to check in with her privately as soon as possible.

"Everything alright?" Sam asked. "We were starting to get worried."

"I just needed to check on some things," Natasha said. "The task force is all over the portal site, by the way. No one's getting in or out for a few more hours at least."

Clint's surveillance setup was one with which Natasha completely agreed: he'd found a quiet perch from which to surveil, and banished Steve and company to a different neighborhood entirely. They were in an out-of-the-way corner of a shopping center parking lot about a mile east, ready to intercept the target in case Clint flushed them out.

Champaign was considerably calmer than Denver had been, now that people knew that the portal only hit each location once. Vigils and other gatherings were springing up on neighborhood streets and in public meeting places, and these would likely go on all night, but there was no mass exodus. Many people were still going about their regular evening routines. There was a sense of grief and fear, but also of community support.

Which meant, from a practical standpoint, that it was still possible to navigate the city without attracting an undue amount of attention. Once Natasha had heard that Clint was in position and Steve's group was secure, she'd taken an hour to run down a few hunches before making the rendezvous.

"I don't like the fact that we haven't had any news yet," said Steve.

"If we can't get close, then no one else can, either," Sam said. "Whatever it is these other guys need to do, they can't do it until the task force has cleared out."

"That's assuming they haven't already been and gone," said Steve. "We missed them in Denver."

"We were hours behind them in Denver," Sam countered. "This is different."

"And if we're wrong, we'll end up hours behind them again!"

Steve paused and reined himself in, and both of them sighed wearily. They'd obviously had this argument before.

"Sorry," Steve added to Natasha. "You've had a chance to look around. What do you think?"

"I agree with Sam," she said. "The other team isn't going to make a move until after the task force releases the scene."

"How can you be sure?"

Natasha smiled. "Because," she said, "I found the other team hiding out in their rental car in a parking garage downtown."

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS for torture, hallucinations.

"So what _does_ happen when you break the code of silence around here?"

That was what Tony'd intended to say, anyway. He'd barely gotten five syllables in when he found himself flat on his back, nursing a split lip.

So that answered _that_ question.

The Mino who'd clocked him gave a dismissive snort and stomped away, which demonstrated a very disappointing lack of follow-through. Tony would have commented further on the subject, but Lily was already pushing her way toward him through the crowd of bystanders, and he wasn't enough of an asshole to risk getting her into trouble, too. She joined him on the ground, and indicated with some severe eyebrow contortions that she didn't approve of his antics. Tony thumbed the blood off his lip and let her tug him back to his feet.

Speaking of disappointing, the rest of the post-breakfast crowd were mostly keeping their distance and averting their eyes, although a couple were sending him pointed looks along the lines of _What did you expect, dumbass?_ Tony'd had some vague hopes of catching a bunch of heads turn towards Black Hat for their cues, but no such luck.

At least, no such luck _yet_.

 

* * *

 

The morning work shift proceeded as usual, right up until the moment that the giant guy (designation: Andre) who'd been silently chopping rocks next to Tony for the last month said, "Cut the shit, Stark."

Tony was so startled that he muffed his swing, and the pickaxe grated against the wall with a nasty screech.

Reflexively, he looked back at the guards, but they didn't seem to be taking an interest. With the steady ring of metal on rock filling the cavern, a low voice, further muffled by a filter mask, could have easily been drowned out.

"Why?" he asked, and corrected his grip. The pick struck rock with a sharp _clink_.

"'Cuz they'll take it out of your hide, that's why." _Clink, clink_. "And for what?"

_Clink_. "Maybe to make them take something—" _clink, CLINK, CLINK_ "—instead of just giving it up."

Andre gave a snort of derision, but otherwise made no response. They went back to chipping away in silence for a time.

"There's a plan," Andre said abruptly. "A way out."

Tony just barely kept his eyes on the rock face. "How do you know?"

"Because someone told me," Andre said, "and now I'm telling you." _Clink_. "It's a one-shot deal, and we gotta wait for the right time." _Clink_. "Giving 'em reasons to beef up security will make the job harder when it counts for something. So _cut_ —" _CLINK_ "—the _shit_."

"Who told you?"

Andre shook his head. "One-way street. How it works."

"Not good enough."

"Not my problem."

Andre walked away from the conversation to dump his basket of ore into a cart. When he got back, he grabbed the next guy down the line by the back of the collar and forcibly traded places with him. Tony's new neighbor glared at _Tony_ , which seemed pretty damned unfair, then shook it off and got back to work. Tony had no choice but to do the same.

 

* * *

 

The problem was this: after four weeks of observation, Tony still didn't have one shred of evidence that an escape was in the works. What he'd seen instead were the newcomers being carefully taught how to follow the rules — and yes, as previously noted, so long as everyone followed the rules, this place was survivable, at least in the short term. If being a silent, obedient slave was anyone's notion of surviving.

He couldn't break them all out by himself. He simply couldn't. To build weapons, he needed the right raw materials — such as could almost certainly be found in ore processing, except he still hadn't seen the inside of that place yet. He needed allies who could create diversions and stand watch and coordinate attacks. He needed a way to beat the damn knockout drugs that put them all under every night. He needed more information (which was to say _any_ information) about how to find the next portal.

He needed people who were willing to stand up and fight with him.

And he didn't have them. What he had were a couple of vague hints and a whole lot of deflection. Andre had now joined Jim on the list of people who expected him to believe that, no really, something was being done. Like he was just supposed to take it on faith that the secrets they were keeping were the _good_ kind.

Every other avenue Tony had explored had hit a dead end. There were opportunities to exchange a few words, if both parties were willing, but hardly anyone was. Since he hadn't been able to get a look at ore processing, he'd tried to at least talk to someone who worked there, but that crew was a particularly tight-lipped bunch. He'd been rebuffed, redirected, ignored. Shut out.

Maybe Black Hat really was keeping them all in line for a reason, in which case stepping _out_ of line seemed like the only way to find out what that reason was. Then again, maybe the escape rumors had been planted by the Minos, or maybe Black Hat _didn't_ have a plan after all and had simply fallen back on trying to keep people safe from day to day. In that case, someone had to be the first to prove that pushing back was possible, and Tony appeared to be the only volunteer. So.

 

* * *

 

"The next time you hire a chef, you might want to double-check that they know how to cook more than one thing. And by the way," Tony added as he rose to his feet to face the incoming guard, "having it come in more than one color does _not_ —"

He slipped beneath the punch, bobbed back up and jabbed the Mino square in the snout, and _damn_ , that felt good.

It bellowed in anger and lunged for him, which was exactly what Tony expected. He stepped off the line of its rush and fired a hard kick into its knee, and the Mino went down with an immensely satisfying crash.

More were on him in seconds, of course. Heavy hands landed on his shoulders and shoved him to the ground, and Tony braced himself for the inevitable thrashing. ( _Worth it, worth it, worth it…_ )

But it didn't come. Instead, Tony was pinned in place, nose to the dirt, while barked orders and scuffling noises told him that the guards were subduing the rest of the population. Then he was hauled to his feet again and shoved hard away from the picnic tables, toward the row of buildings that stood opposite the dorms. The door to the nearest building opened, and out walked the camp commander.

As a general rule, the Minotaurs were a homogeneous group. Some were a little taller, or a little bulkier, or a slightly darker shade of orange, but these were very minor variations on the same basic theme. This guy, though, was the exception. He was just about the only one of the Minos to show any signs of aging, with grey in his mane and noticeable lines in his face. He was also nearly seven feet tall, not counting the horns, and broad enough in the shoulder to make Thor look underfed.

Boss Mino. Tony ruthlessly quashed his shiver of apprehension and faced him squarely.

Behind him, one of the guards told the tale. The boss looked Tony over briefly, then snarled a short command.

Tony was seized by the arms and dragged down the line to the last building. Inside, he caught a quick glimpse of a row of doors with heavy crossbars before he was shoved through the nearest one. It slammed shut behind him, and the crossbar slid into place a moment later.

The cell was, generously, a closet. Small enough that he could put his hands flat on opposite walls. Pitch black. And… okay. Okay. It was solitary. Not quite what he'd expected, but he could handle it. Whatever was coming, he could handle it.

 

* * *

 

The stress of a night locked in a box was blunted by the fact that Tony still fell asleep on schedule. He woke up stiff and sore as all hell, but not worn down by hours of claustrophobia.

The door opened not too long after, and Tony flung up his arms to shield his eyes. More manhandling ensued as he was hauled to his feet and shoved back outside, and _fuck_ , the morning light was vicious after a night of total darkness. Another shove sent him staggering further out into the open space of the town square.

All right, that… that couldn't have been _it_ , could it?

His vision was slowly adjusting. Best he could tell, all of the prisoners were seated at the picnic benches, just like a regular morning. They were also all staring at him, but since that had more or less been the point of the exercise, Tony supposed he couldn't complain about it.

The Minos were there as well — _all_ of them, which was unprecedented. The camp staff numbered about forty, but generally no more than half of them congregated in any one place. They were out in force today, lined up in rows along the two opposite sides of the square. Framing the action.

This, Tony realized, was theater. This was to make a point.

This was going to be very, very bad.

There was a pole planted in the ground that hadn't been there the night before. It was eight feet tall or so, with two lengths of rope hanging from the top, such as might be used to restrain a pair of hands.

Tony was suddenly corralled by a Mino on either side of him. A third stepped out in front of him, holding a massive wooden club.

His arms were pinned at his sides. The club drew back. Stopped. Swung.

The space between one heartbeat and the next seemed to stretch out for a lifetime — a single unending moment of pure, mindless terror.

The club broke his jaw with a resounding _CRACK_. For a bizarre split-second, the pain didn't even register — just the sound and a blinding sense of shock.

Only for a split-second, though.

They strung him up by the wrists while he was still retching from the pain, high enough that he either had to hang his weight from his arms or push up on his toes. _Then_ they started in with the lash, and screaming wasn't an option because moving his jaw wasn't an option but soon _not_ screaming wasn't an option, either.

Twenty-five lines of fire were carved into his back.

Then it stopped.

Everyone left.

And Tony hung there until sunset.

 

* * *

 

A distant impact.

A sense of motion.

Turning. Another impact. Air brushing his face as bodies moved around him. Sensation slowly creeping back into limbs long gone numb — nondescript hints of it at first, but with the promise of agony soon to follow.

Tony was on the floor. Some floor or other. He opened his eyes, and found Kel crouching in front of him. Her expression was… intense, in a manner that he didn't understand and was pretty sure he didn't like.

She touched her thumb to his forehead, and blackness fell like a curtain.

 

* * *

 

The next time Tony woke, he was lying on his side on a firm surface. He felt shaky and weak, but basically intact. Some cautious rolling of his shoulder turned up no pain in his back. His hand was resting just in front of his face; some even more cautious exploration revealed his jaw to be neither dislocated nor obviously fractured. Apparently he'd been the beneficiary of another miraculous repair job.

The day's events seemed to be lurking just out of sight around a corner in his memory. One incautious thought, and Tony knew that he could summon the whole thing back again — the brutal shock of his jaw coming unhinged, the fierce burn of the whip, the hours upon hours of hanging by his arms until the pain eclipsed even—

No. _No_. He'd taken the consequences and survived. _That_ was the point.

Some animal instinct told him that he was being watched. There was only one plausible scenario, and when Tony opened his eyes, he confirmed it: infirmary, exam table, Kel.

Kel lifted her finger to her lips, and Tony recognized that he was in no position to disregard the warning. She was still staring at him with a peculiar intensity, and he was struck by how different her attitude was compared with the last time he'd been on her table. That first day in camp, she'd gone out of her way to assuage his fears, yes, but there had still been a level of detachment to the whole performance, like it had been an interesting intellectual exercise with no personal investment. Now she was giving off the impression of having some skin in the game, although Tony couldn't decipher how or why.

Kel took a few steps forward and crouched down on her haunches, putting herself at eye level. She held up the back of her hand, fingers splayed, then folded her thumb into her palm.

It didn't sink in at first. Tony just stared at her blankly while his brain flat-out rejected the implication.

Then the door opened, and the guards appeared.

He fought like a demon when they grabbed him, and just like every other time in his life, it wasn't nearly good enough.

 

* * *

  

Tony remembered each separate beating in exquisite detail. It was rest of it — hanging alone for hours on end as the pain ground away at his sanity — where things got muddled.

Because he clearly remembered Pepper standing next to him for a time. She was smiling at him fondly, the smile that he thought of as his alone, marking those rare occasions when he'd managed to do something right. She smiled, and rested her hands on his shoulders, and told him that it was going to be okay. Which was a welcome bit of news, if a bit improbable, and he leaned into her touch and tried to lose himself in her smile until  _too hot, no, too hot, baby you're burning me please—_

Then it wasn't Pepper. It was Stane. Looming over him, one hand grinding the bones in his shoulder and the other plunged wrist-deep into his chest, and Tony wanted to scream but he couldn't, he couldn't scream or move or breathe, he was paralyzed and _my fault I should have known how could I let this happen how—_

Stane's face tore open, sliced by invisible knives, ruined ( _is that how it happened?_ ) — no, now it was _her_ , standing over him with a face like a nightmare, reaching out and _stop her don't let her do this again make her stop make her stop_ and he lashed out in fury but the instant skin touched skin—

Blackness again.

Then he'd been back in the cave ( _or was it the bunker?_ ), creeping horror as he ripped the bandages away from his chest to find metal and wires, it was heavy and it _hurt_ —

He looked up at the glint of light, and the edge of the shield hung suspended above his face like the blade of a guillotine and he knew, he _knew_ that he was going to die—

Crack of metal and glass and ribs when it slammed into his heart—

Shuddering impact as he was dumped on the floor. More blank spots.

And scattered here and there amongst the rest of the fragments, the image of a hand held up in front of his face. Three fingers. Two. One.

Zero.

Tony opened his eyes.

He was in the infirmary again, lying on the table. Nothing hurt.

He fixed that final image in his mind: one finger held up, then folded down. The memory felt solid. Real. Not a desperate hallucination.

Unless Kel's entire act had been a lie. False hope and then betrayal, just another part of the torture.

If they— if they dragged him out there again, if they—

Tony shut down that train of thought by desperate force of will, and redirected his attention to concrete, immediate things. The room was lit by the blue-tinged glow of the vine-lights. Through the closest skylight, he could see that it was just after daybreak. He was dressed in a clean version of the usual trousers and T-shirt. The countertops within his view were bare, and he didn't smell either blood or antiseptic.

Also, there was a plant growing out of his arm.

Growing out of it, or growing into it, or— whatever, it was green and twisty, some kind of tendril or something, and it was digging into his forearm and it needed to _stop doing that_.

Tony snatched at it with his other hand out of sheer, panicked reflex, and discovered that his arm felt like it weighed about five hundred pounds. He fell far short and actually had to stop and catch his breath from the effort.

Okay, so that was probably… not good… although maybe not such a surprise that five days of alternating torture and hyperaccelerated alien healing came with consequences. Could be he'd been sedated, or—

...Oh. Right. Tony looked up, tracking the tendril back to a fist-sized green pod hanging on a frame behind his head. Just like an IV bag, with 'plant' in place of 'plastic'.

This planet was terrible in every possible way.

Fear spiked through his chest when Kel walked in. She shut the door behind her, crossed the room to put herself in his line of sight, and leaned up against the counter with her arms folded. Tony tried to keep his breathing under control while scrutinizing her for clues about his immediate future, and… all right, she looked serious, yes, but he was pretty sure it was a calm serious this time, not a guards-at-the-door serious.

And just like that, the panic flipped over into anger, and Tony decided that whatever she was here to do, he was damned if he was going to take it lying down.

Sitting up took a few subjective decades.

By the time he'd levered himself more or less upright, it felt like he'd run a marathon. Every muscle in his body was trembling, and sweat was dripping down his back. He managed to swing his legs over the edge of the table, and then he had to wait with his eyes clenched shut until the world stopped spinning.

When he'd pulled himself together enough to look up, Kel was right where he'd left her. The pinched look on her face made it clear that she didn't approve of his activities, but she also hadn't tried to stop him. It wasn't until Tony took another shot at pulling out the IV — because it was a fucking _plant_ growing out of his _arm_ — that she swooped in and firmly moved his hand away.

The correct technique for dislodging an intravenous clinging vine turned out to be swabbing the puncture site with a small square of cloth that had a sharp, acrid scent. After a few seconds, the vine shrivelled up and retracted out of his flesh, leaving only a small red mark behind.

Kel snapped the dead vine off of the pod, then tossed the trash and went back to her original perch.

"It's over," she said. "But if you continue, eventually they will take your tongue. I can't fix this."

Well. Look who spoke English after all.

Her accent was good, too. Not quite native-level — he could hear the excess precision of someone who wasn't thinking in the language they were speaking — but she could have passed for American in short bursts with just a bit of rehearsal.

All of which was by way of not engaging with what she'd said, because the scathing and witty retort that he absolutely had at the ready seemed to have turned to ash in his throat.

Kel gave a little sigh. "This is not a trap. We are alone. You can talk to me."

_Fuck you_. "Nice language skills. Did your slaves teach you?"

Tony saw a flash of real anger in her eyes. "I own no one," she said tightly. "I live for three years on your world. Friends teach me. And this is not the topic."

No, the topic was the escalating levels of torture in Tony's future if he couldn't learn to be a demure and silent worker drone. And funnily enough, in spite of the gracious invitation for some friendly chit-chat with the woman who had been instrumental in putting him through five days of utter hell, he found that he did not have one _fucking_ thing to say.

He fixed her with a glare of utmost contempt and clamped his jaw shut.

Kel flinched — she actually _flinched_ , wasn't that a laugh — and looked away. "All right," she said quietly.

She stood up and opened the door to the waiting room. Another prisoner was standing there: a woman whom Tony had seen in the mine, though they'd never interacted. She would have been at least six feet tall if she'd stood up straight, but she had that hunch in her back that some tall girls got after the world had told them too many times that they should be shorter. Her eyes were permanently downcast, her body language meek.

On this particular occasion, Sarah Plain and Tall had a bag of laundry slung over her shoulder. Kel gestured her inside, and she scurried nervously over to the linen cupboard. She made her delivery quickly and silently, and then hurried back the way she'd come.

But just as she reached the door, Kel said, "Jean, you need to give him something to do before he gets himself killed."

Jean stopped dead. "That," she said in clipped tones, "was a very interesting unilateral decision you just made."

Kel looked down sheepishly. "Yes," she said. "I suppose it was."

"Perimeter?"

"Fine for now."

Jean straightened up, dropping her meekness like a cloak, and turned a gaze on Kel that reminded Tony of every principal of every boarding school that he'd ever been suspended from.

"Wait outside," Jean ordered, and without protest or hesitation, Kel left the room.

A bit theatrical for Tony's taste, but it did offer him a moment to do some sizing up.

Jean was tall — he couldn't stress that part enough — and now that she wasn't curled inward like she was trying to hide behind herself, he could see that her frame carried some serious muscle. Her features indicated a Chinese heritage, but she spoke with a generic American accent that suggested she'd spent most if not all of her life in the US. She had one of those faces that had settled into its basic configuration around age twenty-five and wouldn't change much for another thirty years. Best guess, Tony put her in the upper half of that range — early forties, plus or minus.

His instincts also told him that if he wanted any control at all over the upcoming conversation, he needed a strong opening move.

"You were caught on camera," he informed her.

Jean's eyebrows arched slightly. "Was I?"

"Denver. Black hat. Getting swallowed by the portal on purpose. That _was_ you, wasn't it?"

She absorbed this calmly. "And I thought I'd been discreet," she said. "Is my face being televised?"

"Nah," he said. "When I left, I was the only one who'd spotted you. I doubt anybody else was looking."

Jean tilted her head in acknowledgment. "Impressive," she said. "But we seem to have skipped ahead a number of steps. Mr. Stark, I am deeply sorry for what you've suffered."

Tony was exhausted and sore, and staring down the barrel of a whole new arsenal of nightmares, and if Jean thought that an empty platitude was going to cut it, well, she was in for a surprise.

"You're a tough person to get ahold of, you know that?" Tony said. "All I wanted was a simple face-to-face, but instead you left me hanging for five days."

He wasn't sure if _worth it_ was on the table anymore, but it was pretty damn satisfying to watch her face go ashen.

"You mean you _delib_ —" Jean broke off and looked away. "I see," she said eventually. "Then I'm even more culpable than I'd initially thought."

"What, you figured I just snapped?"

"It seemed… not inconsistent with the circumstances," she said delicately.

"And that's why you still would have shut me out if your minion out there hadn't said something?"

"Yes," Jean said. "We're going to be here for over a year and a half yet. I have not typically shared high-risk information with people until after they've demonstrated a certain amount of long-term stability." She met his eyes again, and it was obvious that she was doing some sizing up of her own. "Clearly I misjudged you," she said after a moment. "I'm sorry."

"From now on," Tony said tightly, "you don't cut me out of the loop. I want to know everything you know about this planet and the portals, and I want to hear this so-called escape plan of yours. _Now_."

Jean shot a quick look at the door. "I don't have unlimited time—"

"Then talk _fast_ ," he snapped. "Let's start with: who the hell are you, how did you know the portals were coming, and why didn't you try to warn anyone?"

"My name is Jean—"

"Yeah, already got that."

"—and I knew the portals were coming because, a few years ago, I happened to meet an alien in Greenwich."

Greenwich, a.k.a. the time that all of reality had tried to collapse in on itself, and no one had even thought to send Tony a head's-up.

"To dispense with the obvious, that alien was—" Tony pointed in the direction that Kel had gone.

"Yes."

"What were you doing there?"

"Helping where I could," Jean said. "A number of lifeforms were brought to Earth through the rifts, and many of them were hostile. Local police forces aren't typically equipped to deal with, for example, a ten-foot wolf made of ice that's trying to eat a city bus." She gave a slight shrug. "I've encountered a somewhat broader range of circumstances."

But there was no way she was going to casual-shrug her way past that remark. "What are you, ex-SHIELD?" Tony asked.

"Hardly," said Jean, and the distaste in her tone was interesting. "I was never affiliated with an organization. I simply seek out information, and when I have the capacity to act on it, I do so."

_When I see a situation pointed south…_ Tony wondered, he really did, how he kept running into these people.

"Kel and I were wary of each other at first," Jean said, "and the situation was made more difficult by the fact that we had no common language. Nevertheless, she persuaded me that she had no hostile intentions towards humanity."

"How did she manage that?"

"When I first met her, she was fighting a ten-foot wolf made of ice that had been trying to eat a city bus."

Tony rolled his eyes. "Of course she was."

"Once we were able to communicate reliably, Kel told me about this place." Jean's gesture took in their current surroundings. "Her race, j'Brenithi, call it Venen-ka. The portals have stolen individuals from many of the inhabited worlds in the galaxy, including theirs. Brenith experts have been studying the portals for centuries, and are able to make predictions about their upcoming appearances. Kel read some of the documents, discovered that the next planet due to be targeted was also the origin of half of her bloodline, and decided to use the convergence to travel here in advance of the first abduction."

Tony did a double-take. "Did you say half her—"

"I do _not_ recommend that you inquire as to the circumstances," Jean interjected quickly. "Kel carries human blood, but she is a Brenith, and she will take extreme offense to any suggestion otherwise."

And that exhausted his interest in alien identity politics. "Whatever. Why don't you skip to the part where you decided to keep this warning of hers a secret?"

"It wasn't a secret," Jean said. "It simply wasn't actionable. I heard a story from an alien who, as it happens, did _not_ also turn out to be a Norse deity. She heard it from sources on her home planet that she believed to be reliable but had no way to confirm. The timeline was nebulous at best. The potential target zone covered most of North America. The phenomenon itself could only be described as an electrical disturbance that would smell like an interdimensional portal to someone who is sensitive to interdimensional portals. In prior years, I might have reached out to SHIELD, but obviously that hasn't been an option since the Hydra debacle. I have contacts in Homeland Security and a few other agencies. I did try. I got nowhere."

Her description brought back a bunch of really shitty memories of conversations with Thaddeus Ross that had been about as productive as smashing his foot with a hammer. Still, Tony was a bit surprised: maybe the story by itself lacked plausibility, but the fact that a verifiable nonhuman was—

Oh. " _You_ tried."

"That's right," she said, unflinching.

Tony ground his teeth, which turned out to hurt his jaw quite a bit. "In retrospect," he gritted, "is it possible that your account just might have omitted a certain key detail?"

Jean still wasn't bristling in the face of his anger, but this time she wasn't apologizing, either. "Put it like this," she said. "Things that Kel does _not_ have include a royal title, a magic hammer, and a highly advanced on-call interplanetary transportation system. What she _does_ have is intriguingly blended DNA and an assortment of abilities with clear military applications. If I had brought her existence to the attention of someone with sufficient authority to implement a national defense program against the portals, do you believe that she would still be in one piece right now?"

Now that… _that_ was a question that he needed to have been asked, say, eight weeks ago, when he could have told her that the kind of arrogance it took to single-handedly put herself in charge of this crisis, without a hint of oversight or accountability, was criminally irresponsible and led to catastrophes like Sokovia.

And that was still the right answer, wasn't it? It had to be. Except the principle he'd tried to argue for had now been overlaid with the image of Wanda in that fucking straitjacket and electric collar.

If Kel had done her hand-skewering trick in front of some three-star who'd started envisioning a platoon of self-repairing soldiers…

Tony looked away. It was like Rogers and— it was like the two of them all over again, and he did _not_ understand how he'd gotten caught in the crossfire of something like this a second time, like, could the universe _possibly_ be persuaded to let him catch his fucking breath for a change. At the same time, though, if he tried to set aside subsequent events and simply assess Jean's decision in the moment, knowing what he knew about some of the people who made policy these days, he couldn't one hundred percent convince himself that she'd been wrong.

Jean took a cautious step closer. "Believe me, Mr. Stark, it was not a choice I made lightly, and I would never have committed to this course of action without a plan in place to protect the lives of everyone who would be at risk."

Tony thought back to those first blurry images of Black Hat, and his instinct that she'd let herself be taken because it was the only way that she could help. Jean could have decided that the portals weren't her problem, or that whatever happened to Kel and her valuable alien genes wasn't her problem. Instead, she'd put herself on the line to try and forge a middle ground that kept everyone, if not exactly safe, then at least alive and basically in one piece. Maybe there were enough of the right intentions in there that she deserved to tell the rest of her story.

"It's 'Tony'," he told her.

"Tony," Jean amended. "I'm well aware that I have a great deal to make up for, particularly to you. For instance, when you're back on your feet, if you feel the need to punch me in the face several times, I'll understand."

Tony gave a snort of amusement in spite of himself. "I'll think it over. All right, so you'd uncovered the truth that the rest of the world wasn't ready to know. What did you do?"

"One of my friends has a certain facility with — for want of a better term — magic." Off Tony's skeptical look, she added, "It's not unprecedented. You work with Wanda Maximoff."

Wanda, who had gotten her powers from an alien artifact, was not Tony's idea of a trendsetter, but sure, what the hell. These days, it seemed like he couldn't turn around without tripping over a new enhanced.

"Another friend of ours set up a program to monitor and analyze meteorological data across the target region," Jean continued. "We flagged storms that appeared suddenly and out of season, and that acted in a small geographical area rather than as part of a larger weather system. These were cross-referenced against reports of missing persons, electrical failures, and sightings of strange lights or other phenomena. If an incident reached a certain threshold, Kiran assessed the site for… well, whatever evidence a portal leaves behind for someone with Kiran's senses. In six months, there were four strong candidates, but each one turned out to be nothing.

"Then Mt. Hood happened. The storm scored half again as high on Peter's scale as any of the others we'd tracked. Kiran and I flew out that night, and Kiran confirmed that a portal had been there, and caught onto its trail. My team met us on the road, and the rest you seem to know."

Tony nodded, then immediately wished he hadn't when another wave of dizziness hit. His jaw was aching nonstop now, and his back muscles were starting to shake from the effort of holding him upright.

Jean took another half-step forward. "Are you—"

"I'm fine," he said sharply. "I caught up with a couple of kids on the road to the third portal site. Your people, I assume?"

"Peter and Kiran," Jean said. "I asked them to continue tracking the portals, and to prevent more people from being taken if at all possible."

"Still a few kinks in the system."

"Yes," she said. "That was always our weakest point. I simply didn't have the personnel to offer them any more support."

"How about this side? How many do you have?"

Jean's eyes narrowed slightly. "No," she said.

"What?"

"No. Some details need to stay compartmentalized. The fewer of us who are capable of compromising the entire operation, the better."

"Where'd you get that line from, _Insurgency for Dummies_?"

" _Star Trek: Deep Space Nine_ , actually."

"Are you _fucking_ —" Tony broke off with an exasperated sigh when she cracked a smile. "Fine. What about—" he caught himself just before he could say 'Jim' "—the young guy who was working here when I first got in — he one of yours?"

"Why, because he works with Kel?"

"Because he's the one who told me about the twenty-month timeline."

Jean nodded. "Yes, that's our schedule."

"What's controlling the clock?"

"Have you noticed the time discrepancy compared with Earth?"

He was a little insulted. "Time moves a lot faster on this side. Yeah. Noticed."

"Approximately three hundred times faster, in fact, which means—"

"Twenty months here is two days back home," Tony finished. "The portal opened every twenty-four hours on our side, so you're saying it'll open two more times, and you're timing your move for the final window."

Jean looked startled. ( _Hi, my name is Tony Stark and I can do basic arithmetic._ ) "Exactly. Do you see, then, why we have to wait?"

"How sure of your intel are you?" Tony asked.

"My original plan was based on Kel's report," she said. "Since arriving, I've received confirmation of both the timing and number of the remaining portals. It's as solid as anything can be under the circumstances."

"Right. Counter-proposal: we run your play ten months early, get everyone out at the next available chance, and then stop the damned thing from opening again."

"No," she said. "We have to hold the final portal site from this side. Any other course of action puts too many people at risk."

One day, maybe Tony would find himself in a conversation with someone who was actually listening to him. "Did you miss the part where I said we would shut it down?" he asked.

"Purportedly, not even the Asgardians can do that."

"Oh, you're chummy with _Asgardians_ now?"

"No, you're the one with that distinction," she said dryly. "I can only repeat what Kel has told me that she learned on her homeworld. j'Brenithi have been in conflict with Asgard before and generally come off the worse for it. As such, they take an interest in monitoring Asgardian activity and technological developments. According to Kel, the Asgardians are able to track the portals with sufficient accuracy and lead time that they can evacuate the targeted area, but they have not found a way to deflect or prevent them."

"So on the basis of a third-hand rumor — correct me if I'm wrong here — that passed through at least one language barrier and a healthy dose of cultural bias, _you've_ decided that the problem is impossible."

"I have decided not to risk an unknown number of lives on the development of an unprecedented scientific breakthrough," Jean replied.

"But you're okay with inflicting ten extra months of hard labor on the ones who—"

He was interrupted by two sharp knocks on the door, followed by Kel's hurried entrance. Jean tapped her finger to her lips in a completely unnecessary warning, then she and Kel began a rapid-fire conversation in ASL.

Which confirmed, as if there had been any lingering doubt, that Jim was also on the team.

A portion of their conversation involved pointing at him, which Tony did not care for at all. When they were done, Kel started pulling random junk out of cupboards and strewing it about the counters, while Jean strode over to Tony and unceremoniously scooped him up and laid him flat.

_Boy_ , were they going to have a conversation about personal space later.

She leaned in close to his ear and whispered, "Pretend to sleep," and apparently they were also going to have a chat about patronizingly self-evident instructions.

However, there was nothing he could do about it right that moment except close his eyes. He could already hear the heavy steps of a Mino crossing the waiting room. Kel's brisk footfalls placed her between the door and everyone else in the room, while Jean's steps took on a muted, shuffling tone as she resumed her 'totally harmless, don't mind me' persona. Soft clinks of metal and glass ensued as she began to clean up the mess that Kel had created.

Cloven hooves clomped their way through the door. " 'I sent a laundry girl in here ages ago,' " the Mino growled. " 'How can it take so long to drop off a single load of laundry?' "

Kel answered in the peremptory tone that she used with all but the most senior staff. " 'Look at the state of my counters!' " she snapped. " 'What's the point of even having slaves if a person has to clean her own counters? You can get your laundry girl back when she's done clearing away all this crap that mysteriously appeared in the last thirty seconds.' "

" 'My socks still need darning,' " the Mino answered, sounding sulky. " 'Have you seen my feet? I go through two dozen pairs of socks per day.' "

" 'Get a different laundry girl,' " said Kel. " 'I'm using this one. She turned up coincidentally at a convenient moment, and this is in no way a cover for a secret strategy meeting.' "

The Mino grumbled something further, but finally turned around and left.

Open question: how had Kel managed to secure a position sufficiently far up in the local hierarchy that she could get away with things like that?

Minos weren't exactly built for stealth. Tony could easily track the receding steps back across the waiting room floor and out of the building. Still, it was a slow fifteen-count before Kel said, "He won't hear us now."

Tony opened his eyes. The first thing he noticed was that Jean still had a certain 'pick Tony up' air about her, and he immediately thrust out his palm. The corner of her mouth quirked upward slightly, and she stayed put while he went through the whole sitting-up process again.

It only took a few subjective weeks this time. Clearly he was making a miraculous recovery.

Kel also kept her distance until Tony had gotten himself settled. But then she came up beside him and started unravelling a second tendril from the IV pod that was still hanging over his shoulder.

Tony shot the thing a look of extreme distaste.

"It will help," she said. "Please?"

"Do I actually get to say no, or do you just say this shit to make yourself feel better?"

Jean stirred, but didn't intervene.

Kel met his eyes calmly. "I carry a debt to you," she said. "I tried to convince the commandant to choose a smaller punishment, but I failed. I could have killed him, but I didn't. I could have refused to repair the damage each night, but I didn't. So I made this possible. To… 'feel better' is to pay the debt. I would start by giving you your strength back, but… no, not without your permission."

The part where her list of problem-solving strategies included murder was probably cause for some alarm, but in the interest of expediency and his own basic grip on things, Tony decided to skim past it. As for the rest, he read nothing but simple sincerity in her face.

"I liked you better before you started making speeches," he informed her, and turned his arm over for her attention. "And _you_ I liked better before you had a sense of humor," he added to Jean, who hadn't quite covered her smile in time.

"As you say," she said, the picture of decorum again.

The correct technique for affixing an intravenous clinging vine turned out to be painting a stripe of some thick, sweet-smelling fluid over top of a vein in his forearm, and then pressing the end of the tendril down over the site. The wretched thing latched on and dug in — painlessly, but it was still revolting.

Kel poked around at his jaw for a bit after that ("I will touch here," she said first, demonstrating on herself. "Can I?"), working her fingers down the length of the bone, then gently testing the range of motion of the joint. Tony did not at _all_ like being grabbed by the face, but she was… not so bad at doing it in a nonthreatening way.

"There is some swelling," Kel said. "This causes the pain. The medicine will bring it down. You'll stay here today to recover. I would have said not to talk for too long," she added pointedly over her shoulder, "if anyone had asked me."

"You set this up," Jean countered. Once Kel had started doing medical stuff, she'd discreetly turned away and begun examining a knothole in the wall with all apparent fascination. "You were right."

"But it is enough for today, yes?"

"Nearly," Jean said. "How long do we have?"

"For you, not long. I don't think I can make another excuse."

Kel finished her work and retreated, which was Jean's cue to turn back around.

"Then we had better settle the remaining questions quickly," she said.

"Sounds good," Tony said. "What were we arguing?"

"A particular manifestation of what I suspect are fundamentally disparate approaches to risk management and problem solving."

"That's right. Although I would have described it as your woeful underestimation of human ingenuity versus my vastly superior technical expertise."

She flashed that smile again. "I dare say." Then she exhaled slowly, and her expression grew pensive. "I believe that we could reasonably guarantee that the fifth portal would not take anyone else. But that's not the most urgent problem. If we leave early, and can't find a way to block the final portal in the subsequent twenty-four hours, then the Earth becomes vulnerable to retaliation."

Tony looked around incredulously. "From these guys? They have _swords_!"

"The Mjentur have swords," Jean said. "The Nyth — the scorpions — are something else entirely. We are the more technologically advanced race in many ways, but there are some things that they do extremely well." She gestured at the pod. "As you may have noticed, the majority of their technology is organic. That specialization extends to biological weapons."

"The Nyth don't like to be challenged," Kel added. "They take their workers from other planets, but if a planet makes too much trouble, they have ways to punish it. I have heard stories of Nyth plagues that killed thousands of thousands."

For _fuck's_ sake, now there were plagues.

"You see the stakes," Jean said gently. "I've gambled a hundred twenty lives on my plan. Are you willing to risk potentially thousands more on—"

" _No_ ," he snapped. "Obviously we can't— look, next time, _lead_ with the plague, all right? On a scale of relevant information…" He held up his hand and marked off successive rungs of an imaginary ladder. "That goes higher."

"Noted."

"Also, when we get out of this, I'm giving you my email address, no government strings attached, so when the next alien plague-invasion comes around that only you know about, you can bring your intel to me and we'll cut it off at the source."

Jean blinked. "Thank you. Although I hope not to be involved with something like this again."

"Yeah. So did I."

What little strength he'd managed to cobble together suddenly seemed to be flowing out of him. Presumably thanks to Kel and whatever she was doping him with. Tony wondered if he could lie down without falling off the table.

Jean had clearly noticed that he'd started listing to starboard. "Would you like—"

"I really wouldn't," he said, and managed to pitch over onto one elbow without too much embarrassment. That just left his legs hanging over the edge. They were a lot heavier than they should have been.

Tony sighed. He hated this planet so much. "All right, would you just…"

Jean obligingly boosted his feet up onto the table — _See how you managed that without an actual bridal lift_? — and he stretched out on his back. That was better. He wasn't closing his eyes, though.

"So what's your grand plan for getting everyone home?"

"On this side, the portals appear precisely every three hundred days," Jean said. "The sites are separated by only a few miles, and each portal remains open for close to three hours. Fifteen days before a portal is due to appear, the Nyth send out three small scouting teams of Mjentur, who zero in on the precise location and prepare the site.

"Ten days before final the portal arrives, we take the camp. Kel and a preselected team go up into the foothills after the scouts, kill them, and assume their jobs. A few days later, once we've packed sufficient provisions, I lead the rest of the group out of camp to join them. We destroy the bridge once we're across, stranding any pursuit on the other side of the ravine. As soon as the portal opens, we send everyone back through. Kel and I stay behind to secure the site for as long as possible, and to redirect anyone who comes through from Earth."

Okay, so he closed his eyes. Whatever. "Take the camp?" Tony asked. "Just like that?"

"Approximately, yes."

"Well, that's a relief. Here I thought we might run into armed opposition."

"Again, compartmentalization," Jean said. "Certain measures will be in place by then."

"Uh-huh." There'd been something else… something off about what she'd said. But Tony couldn't get the thought to form properly. Easier just to drift. It would come to him.

"At the moment," Jean added, "my primary objective is to keep everyone alive and whole."

"You want me to go back to playing by the rules, is that it?"

"Preparing to kill every Mjentur in camp is hardly playing by the rules," she said. "But you would be helping everyone, yourself included, if you could find a way to maintain a cooperative facade. If the alternative is to see you maimed—"

"You won't risk a hundred to save one, yeah, I got it."

Jean was silent for long enough that he hauled one eyelid open again to find out what had happened. Her expression, once it swam back into focus, was tense with some emotion he couldn't identify.

"Of course I would, Tony," she said. "If it ever went that far, I would find a way to get you out of camp first. You or anyone else here. I only meant to say that the risks incurred by allowing the situation to devolve to that extent seem to me to far outstrip the rewards."

Her words left a cold twist in the pit of his stomach, like he'd fucked up somewhere. "I don't have to draw attention," he muttered, letting his eyes close again. "If there's work to be done. Under the radar, sort of thing. I can do that."

"I'm glad," she said. "And there is work to be done. We're moving slowly right now, but I'm sure I can find a task that could use the touch of your vastly superior technical expertise."

"Damn betcha."

"Good," Jean said. "Welcome to the team."

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks very much for the comments and kudos! I'm thrilled that people besides me are having some fun with this.

The PR department was as proficient as ever. The official Stark Industries statement concerning the disappearance of Iron Man took an optimistic tone in support of the official task force, while adding at the end that SI stood ready to provide any and all possible assistance in the rescue efforts, and that anyone with information was urged to come forward. Pepper signed off on it, then did her best to focus on other avenues of investigation while she waited to see if anyone was willing to talk.

Barely an hour later, Maria requested a second meeting.

"What do you have?" Pepper asked when she walked in.

"We've gotten some responses," Maria replied. "Most of them are the predictable sort of noise, but we did receive a lengthy sequence of documents whose origins are shrouded in mystery."

She tapped her tablet, and a file opened on Pepper's screen, named JaneFoster01of30.pdf.

_THIS IS JANE FOSTER_ , it began.

Pepper had to smile. "Have you read them?"

"The English, not the physics," Maria said wryly. "From what I can tell, she thinks that the only way the portal can be tracked is if a team is on the ground, keeping pace with it as it moves from one site to the next. She says she can put together the necessary equipment as soon as she gets back to her lab, but that won't be until tomorrow because she's currently en route from Hawaii."

"See if you can get in touch with her directly, and let her know that we'll expedite her travel as much as we can," Pepper said.

"Got it."

"Anything else?"

Maria hesitated. "There's one more, and I'm honestly not sure what to make of it. There's a good chance that it's a hoax, but… well, see for yourself."

Pepper turned her attention back to the screen and the simple text document that had appeared.

_Dear Ms. Potts, CEO of Stark Industries,_

_I'm very sorry about Iron Man. I'm the one who told him where the portal was going to be, and I feel terrible that it led to this. He's still alive, though. They're all still alive, and they're coming back in two days. Some friends of mine went through to make sure of it._

_I'm trying to keep the portals from taking any more people, but obviously I'm not doing a very good job. I don't have a lot of help. We can track them, but it takes a long time and we don't get a solid location until the last minute. We're trying to do better._

_Thank you for agreeing to communicate anonymously. We don't want our names in the news. There are reasons. Thanks for understanding. I don't expect you to believe what I'm saying right away, but I'll try to answer your questions and prove that I am who I say I am. I hope I can convince you, because I think we're going to need more help if we want to get the next site clear in time._

_Sorry again._

Pepper's heart was thudding in her ears. "Did they leave instructions for how to get in touch?"

"Sent in a second file," Maria said. "Pepper, _please_ be careful with this."

"You think it's a fake."

"I think it sounds like a high school senior apologizing for standing up his prom date! I _hope_ it's a fake."

Pepper read the letter again, lingering on every word. _He's alive. They're coming back in two days_. The tone was a little off in places, admittedly, but the content was too startling to ignore, particularly in light of what she'd learned from other sources.

It had come as a shock when FRIDAY had granted her access to Tony's private server. Tony was zealous about privacy when it came to his work, and in light of their recent change in status, Pepper had assumed that she would be locked out. She'd wondered, briefly, if FRIDAY had some kind of emergency protocols in the event of a scenario like this. Then it had occurred to her that FRIDAY almost certainly had emergency protocols in the event of Tony's death, and the thought of… of _that_ being the reason that…

It had taken quite a few more tissues before she'd been able to touch the keyboard again, and every second after that had felt like a violation. But she'd come out of it with a much clearer picture of what Tony had uncovered during the past twenty-four hours — details that were now being echoed by her anonymous correspondent.

"I've reviewed Tony's work on the portals," she told Maria, and her voice only shook a little bit. "The last hour of records from the suit were corrupted by… by what happened when he was taken, but I know what he was doing before that." Her eyes were drawn back to the first paragraph of the letter. "Tony wasn't tracking the portal directly — he was tracking people. He left the compound to intercept a team that he believed had been following the portal since Denver — which is exactly what Jane said that someone would have to do, isn't it? He must have found them, and learned about Champaign from them, just like the letter says. Not only that, but he caught onto them in the first place because he found evidence in the footage from Denver that someone had gone through the portal on purpose. Nothing remotely like that is in the media, so how could a hoaxer have guessed?"

"By being vague and getting lucky," Maria said immediately. Then she seemed to relent a little, and sank down into one of the office chairs. "All right, it's possible that this is legit. It's _maybe_ even plausible. But even if it is, we still have no idea who the hell these people are, or how or why they're doing the things they claim to be doing."

Pepper knew that the situation called for caution, but it was hard to be circumspect in the face of this sudden glimmer of hope. Yes, it was possible that someone was just telling her what she wanted to hear, garnished with a few lucky guesses. But on the other hand, if there was someone out there who really did know what had happened to Tony… who had good reason to believe that he and all of the abductees would make it back in one piece…

"I'm not saying that I believe the story unconditionally," she said to Maria, "but I can't just ignore it, either. I'd like to hear more of what they have to say. Wouldn't you?"

Maria smiled faintly, and it was equal parts resignation and understanding. "If you write a response," she said, "I'll make sure it's delivered."

"Thank you."

Her posture relaxed a little, and Pepper leaned back in her chair in response.

"Have you talked to Rhodes?" Maria asked.

"Just after Champaign," Pepper said. "I'm flying to the compound later tonight."

"You've never been there before, have you?"

"No," Pepper admitted. She caught Maria's expression — open, sympathetic — and for a moment she wondered if she should try to say something more about… all of it. The whole tangled mess of _Tony_ versus _Iron Man_ , and where and how she'd tried to fit herself in, and failed. But she knew that those particular floodgates would never close again once opened, and in the end, all the talking in the world would still turn out to be painfully inadequate.

Instead, Pepper added, "I could use the company."

Maria smiled again. "I could use the change of scenery," she said.

 

* * *

 

Jean started giving him things to do.

Not right away, though. For the first few days that Tony was back at work, she ignored him completely. Then, just as he was getting good and outraged at having been brushed off, she popped up out of nowhere while he was in the goddamned _shower_.

"I haven't forgotten," she said, and promptly disappeared again.

(Not that they had showers in the standard sense. The prisoners washed with this body scrub sort of stuff that worked up a half-hearted lather and could then be towelled off, no water required. Which was not the point. The point was that Tony did _not_ take meetings wearing nothing but a towel, thank you very much.)

He wasn't sure if this was a test, or if it was simply taking Jean this long to come up with something for him to work on, but in any case, he grit his teeth and kept his head down, and waited her out. Finally, while getting dressed one morning about a week later, he found a set of pencils stuck inside one of his boots, and a piece of paper folded up in the other.

The paper had a sketch, and a question. Tony recognized the bridge that he and his fellow Champaign abductees had been marched across en route to the camp. The sketch was accompanied by some density and tensile strength estimates, except they had obviously been made by someone who had never built a bridge in their life. Tony corrected the figures, then moved on to the question, which was: given an estimated energy output per explosive charge, how many were required and where should they be placed to bring the bridge down?

So that took him like thirty seconds.

The more interesting problem was how to send the information back. Tony casually attempted to sit near Jean at dinner that evening, and she just as casually slid into the last remaining seat at a crowded table.

Fine. Message received. He kept his distance.

His patience was rewarded after dinner when Jean discreetly caught his eye. She showed him five fingers, then pointed at the sun, then innocently crouched down to pull off her boot and knock an imaginary stone out of it.

Tony took this to mean that the boot message depository would be checked every five days. He also took it to mean that Ms. Compartmentalization had a way to beat the sedatives and go sneaking around after dark, and that she made a regular habit of doing so.

Which meant, in turn… what? Were the Minos really so overconfident that they didn't even have night patrols?

Actually, that possibility wasn't entirely out of the question. After all, there were no fences, and no pat-downs or room searches as far as Tony had seen. Hell, they weren't even locked in at night. It was as if the Minos hadn't even considered the possibility that their prisoners were conspiring against them.

And yeah, all right, that overconfidence probably stemmed in part from the fact that all the prisoners (…most of the prisoners) had been pliant and well behaved, which in turn probably stemmed from the efforts of Jean and her network. Which meant that there _had_ been a good reason for keeping everyone in line after all.

Well. Now he knew what it was.

Tony duly left the page in his boot on the appointed evening, and it was gone the next morning.

New pages started showing up every ten days or so. In contrast with the relatively trivial bit of engineering that he'd started off with, subsequent installments ramped their way up through a sequence of calculations — some of them entertainingly nasty — concerning the thermodynamic properties of various multi-step chemical reactions, but where the laws of chemistry had apparently gone on a three-day bender. Tony had the impression that he was checking someone's work.

He tried matching this level of mathematical fluency against the members of Jean's band that he'd already met, but none of them clicked. Admittedly, Jim was still something of a mystery to him, but Tony decided that this work was more likely coming from someone new — maybe someone Jean had managed to plant in ore processing, where chemistry could be observed in action.

He was looking forward to meeting that someone.

The work helped. Tony played his part during the day while running the math in his head, then retired to his dorm after dinner and quickly wrote his notes each evening. Even the days between assignments were easier to bear, knowing that it was all going towards a common purpose. And little by little, the weeks turned into months.

 

* * *

 

It had taken Natasha no small amount of effort to talk Steve out of racing downtown that very instant and, in all probability, flipping the car over and shaking the pair of portal chasers out of it.

"Do you know why I made them so easily?" she'd asked. "Because they're amateurs. Amateurs are predictable while they're working their plan, and highly _unpredictable_ when their plan goes off the rails. Sending them into a panic gains us nothing. The easiest way to learn how they're tracking the portal is to step back and let them do it."

She'd said it, then Sam had said it, and then they'd both said it several more times until Steve had finally relented. He'd retreated back into Clint's car with ill grace and spent the next few hours silently radiating impatience.

It was almost midnight when Clint reported that the last of the official personnel had withdrawn from the portal site. Natasha had long since gotten into position outside the parking garage. The target car came creeping out onto the street shortly thereafter, and she tailed it north.

At first, they drove a meandering pattern through the neighborhood that the portal had struck. Natasha dropped back from them a bit, just in case they were trying to detect or evade surveillance, but she wasn't picking up any indications that she'd been spotted. Finally, they parked on the street and walked up the block to a small local park. A few scattered trees provided a modicum of cover from the sidewalks; they still would have been highly conspicuous if their setup had included any kind of scientific equipment, but one of them had only a laptop and the other was empty-handed.

She hung back for a while in case this was only a temporary stop, but the pair of them set themselves up in the center of the park and didn't move for several minutes. This seemed as good a time as any to observe them in action.

_Tracking in progress_ , Natasha texted to Steve, and gave him the closest intersection.

_5 min out_ , Steve replied.

Natasha found her own street parking and took another minute to assess the scene. One of the two figures was kneeling in the grass, head bowed, while the other was standing over the laptop, shifting idly from foot to foot. Their tracking process didn't seem to involve a whole lot of _process_.

The answer, once it occurred to her, was blindingly obvious. They were tracking the portal the same way Wanda had — not by scientific gadgetry, but through some preternatural sense that let them circumvent the science altogether.

Natasha's position on magic was that, in the right hands and under the right circumstances, it had the potential to be a useful tool. In practice, though, it was far more likely to take any given situation and make it ten times worse.

This was not a situation that could afford to get ten times worse.

She added to Steve, _At least one of them is enhanced. Approach with caution_.

Then she ignored her own advice and strolled across the grass towards them.

The one on the ground appeared to be deep in meditation, while the one on his feet appeared to be deeply bored. He was around twenty-three, Caucasian, five foot seven, one seventy, carrying the kind of musculature that suggested he had standing thrice-weekly appointments at the local gym, and pacing with the kind of distracted, careless gait that suggested he had no combat training whatsoever. Surrounding them both was a twenty-foot circle that had been scorched into the grass.

Natasha came to a halt beneath a nearby tree and asked, "What are you doing?"

The kneeling figure didn't so much as twitch, but the kid who had been pacing spun in place so fast he nearly overbalanced. His jaw dropped. He rubbed his eyes. He looked over his shoulder, either hoping for some direction from his companion or else assessing his chances if he made a break for it.

When neither suggestions nor escape routes were forthcoming, he looked down at the burnt line in the grass, and the computer sitting next to him, then back at her, and said, tentatively, "Nothing?"

"Try again," Natasha suggested.

"I love your hair?"

"That was worse."

"It was worse," he agreed quickly. "It was so much worse. Oh my god. Oh my _god_. I'm about to die. This is it, this is how I die. And I'm not even that mad about it. Oh my god."

Fear had its uses, but gibbering was tiresome. "You're not going to die," Natasha said patiently. "What's your name?"

"Um…" He looked over his shoulder again, but there was still no help to be had. "Peter?" he said hesitantly. "My name's Peter. That's Kiran. Kiran's busy right now, so I guess you're talking to me. Peter. Please don't ask for last names, because Jean said no last names under any circumstances."

Gibbering was tiresome, but rambling was a goldmine. "Who's Jean?" Natasha asked.

"Jean is… the boss," Peter said. "Of me. Not like in general — I've got more of a self-employed thing going on right now — but when it comes to weird phenomena and/or powers and/or alien stuff, Jean is definitely the boss of me."

"I'd like to talk to Jean," said Natasha. "Where is she?"

Peter held up his hands, fingertips touching, in the form of a circle. "Through," he said. "She's one of the ones who went through."

He stopped there. Natasha waited, unmoving, while the silence lay invitingly between them.

"We had this plan, you know?" Peter burst out after barely three seconds. "We couldn't stop it from happening, so Jean and the others went through to protect the people who were taken, and Kiran and I stayed here to keep any _more_ people from being taken, except— okay, Champaign was a disaster, start to finish. You're totally right. Because first we got stuck in traffic trying to get out of Denver — and yeah, should have seen that coming, right? Giant portal, first time people knew about it, of course they were gonna try and get out of the city — and then Kiran lost the track for a while and we had to circle Omaha like three times, and don't even _talk_ to me about St. Louis, like who even designed _that_ place, and by the time we finally pinned down the neighborhood, there was no way to get there before it hit, so I started calling people except they didn't even believe me until I made up a story about a gas leak, and I'm really, _really_ sorry about Iron Man! Please don't kill me." He paused, at last, for breath. "By the way, is there some number of caffeine pills where if you take any more than that, your eyeballs go bouncing _right_ out of your skull? Asking for a friend."

Natasha decided to ignore that. "Interesting tracking procedure," she said instead. "I take it you're using magic."

"Yes? Basically? Or like, Kiran's _finding_ the portal with magic and the computer's _tracking_ it on the maps and stuff. I mean, there's a way of looking at it where Kiran's the one doing all the 'work'—" he threw in the finger quotes "—but I'm just saying that getting the magic part to talk to the computer part? Not easy. At all. That's all I'm saying."

Kiran still showed no awareness of ongoing events, which meant that for the moment, only Peter was in play. Natasha tended to automatically distrust anyone who put as much effort as he did into coming across as nonthreatening. However, her instinct right now was that his intentions were exactly what he'd said they were: to help. That could be useful.

"Here's what's going to happen," she said. "You're going to come with me to meet some friends of mine, and you're going to tell us your story again. Slowly. Using more than one sentence. Then—"

"Nonono," he said quickly when she took a step forward. "Actually, if you could keep to the _there_ vicinity, rather than the _here_ vicinity? Please?"

"Why?" Natasha asked, and took another step. "What's happening in the—"

Her foot crossed the scorch mark and gently rebounded, like she'd kicked a giant beach ball. A faint blue shimmer spread outward and upward from the impact point, curving gently along the invisible barrier that stood between them, and faded again.

Peter winced. "Because you can't cross the boundary right now, actually. Sorry."

Natasha's assessment of Kiran's powers went up a few notches. "I bet I know someone who could punch her way through this," she said.

He nodded vigorously. "Oh, you totally do. But the thing is, if Wanda Maximoff breaks down the barrier right now, then Kiran's whole _thing_ over there will fall apart, and we won't be able to tell where the next portal is going, and we won't be able to warn anybody, and maybe a whole lot more people will get taken." He flung his arms open in an exaggerated gesture of helplessness.

Natasha considered pushing back. But locating the next portal was critical, and these two had gotten closer in Champaign than anyone else, for all that they'd failed to capitalize on the information. There was more to be gained by letting the scenario play out.

"How much longer?" she asked.

Peter swung his arms wide again. "There's no way to know," he said. "We waited longer to start this time so we wouldn't get stuck in all the, you know, the crowds and the government folk and whatever, but maybe that'll make it harder for Kiran to pick up the trail. I don't know. It could be minutes more, or hours, or—"

The laptop at his feet went _ding_.

He wilted. "Or not."

Behind him, Kiran stirred, stretched, and slowly stood up.

Peter took a step back and to the side. "Um," he said. "Hey, so we've got company. Avenger-type company. Just so you know."

From the street behind her, Natasha heard a car door shut. Good timing.

Kiran was taller and leaner than Peter, a year or two older, and far more composed. "What can we do for you?"

Natasha stretched out her hand experimentally, but the barrier was still in place. "Impressive work," she said. "Where did you learn how to do this?"

"My grandmother's house," said Kiran. "You didn't answer my question."

"A friend of mine was taken by one of the portals," she said. "A hundred and twenty other people were, too. You can help me find the next site so that I can go through and bring them back."

"I could," Kiran agreed, "but I'd rather not. Friends of mine are already on the other side for exactly that reason. Everyone else who goes through makes their job that much harder."

Steve, bless his sense of drama, chose that precise moment to step out from behind the tree at Natasha's back. "Does that include me?" he asked.

Peter's eyes widened to twice their normal size, and he snapped, inexpertly, to attention.

Kiran remained unimpressed. "I'm afraid it does. If Jean had intended to make an exception for Avengers — current or former — she would have said so."

Natasha leaned over and stage-whispered, "Jean's on the other side. She's the boss of them."

"I see," Steve said. "You seem very confident that your boss doesn't need any backup."

"You seem very eager to jump into a rescue mission when you don't know anything about the conditions."

"But you obviously do."

Kiran paused, and admitted, "Not from first-hand experience. For that matter, our informant also wasn't working from first-hand experience, although she's been right about everything she predicted on this side."

"That sounds like a good reason to send in some extra help."

"But you're asking me to take it as read that you would, in fact, help rather than hinder. I don't have much to base that on."

Peter gave a squawk of indignation. "That's Captain America!" he yelped. "You can't— you _can't_ — s'cuse us for a moment," he said to Natasha, and flashed her a bright smile. "My colleague and I just need to have a quick conference." He tugged Kiran deeper into the circle, and began a whispered conversation that Natasha could still hear perfectly well.

"Careful," she warned when Steve started to approach the boundary line. "We're still working out some trust issues." She flicked the barrier with her fingers, and Steve's eyebrows went up at the ensuing light show.

"It's Captain America," Peter was saying.

"Yes, I did notice that."

"But it's _Captain America_!"

"Jean specifically said that she didn't want soldiers."

"That was only because of the guns!"

"No, it was because the only people she wanted around to pick fights were the ones who actually know what they're doing."

"Yeah, I know, Jean and Kel can _whatever_ , but it's not just them, is it? What if something _has_ gone wrong? Then we'll never even know — they just won't come back."

"What if everything was going fine until more people showed up to interfere? We'll never know that, either."

Peter rubbed the back of his head. "Come on, buddy, he's my _husband_. You _know_ how long they've been gone. I'm going out of my mind here."

That one got through. After a few seconds' hesitation, Kiran held out a hand, palm downward, and made a circling motion. The barrier lit up with little blue starbursts, then vanished.

Kiran, who apparently wasn't shy about making a point, then pointed at the laptop, which folded shut and flew through the air to land in Peter's arms. Peter hugged it protectively and gave Kiran a reproachful glare, which was ignored.

"All right," Kiran said. "We'll tell you what we know, and if you still intend to go, I won't try to stop you."

"Thank you," Steve said, only a little sarcastically.

"You should be aware that Stark Industries has expressed an interest in helping to evacuate the next target site. That means there might be people in the area who decide to take an interest in a group of international fugitives."

Now that actually was a valid point, although Natasha wasn't concerned about the departure so much as the return. Steve was going to dive in regardless, and Sam would undoubtedly go with him, but Clint and particularly Wanda might not be so eager to follow suit without some assurances that the operation wouldn't end with all of them detained again. Once they'd heard Kiran's intel, there was a serious conversation to be had about the endgame.

"The last thing we want to do is interfere with the evacuation," Steve said. "Do whatever you need to do to get people out. We'll help where we can, and take our chances."

Kiran sighed faintly. "All right. Then we'll have to talk on the road. We have a lot of ground to make up."

"Where are we headed?" Natasha asked.

"I don't have the location yet," said Kiran. "I wish it were that simple. All I have right now is a sense of speed and direction. We still need to chase it."

Steve nodded. "Then let's move out."

 


	8. Chapter 8

Natasha made the point that a convoy of three cars was unnecessarily conspicuous, and Steve was forced to agree. They detoured briefly so that she could drop off her car in that downtown parking garage, then the seven of them redistributed themselves among the remaining two vehicles and set out east. Steve was in the first car in line, along with Natasha, Kiran and Peter. After some token protests, Peter ended up dozing in the back seat, still hugging his computer. Steve sat beside him. Natasha drove, and Kiran talked.

The first thing Steve learned was that Tony's suit would have blown itself to hell within minutes of his arrival on the other side.

"Anything that runs on electricity overloads and explodes," Kiran said. "Even if it's as small as a watch battery. Nothing with a power source will survive."

"What happens to gunpowder?" Natasha asked.

"Guns won't explode on their own, but Kel said that if someone tried to fire one, they'd end up taking their own arm off."

The second thing Steve learned was that a round trip that took twenty-four hours on Earth would last ten months on the other side.

From the cell phone resting between the front seats, Sam's voice asked, "Are you telling us that everyone who was taken in Champaign has already been stranded for two and a half _months_?"

"Yes. And the people taken in Denver have been there over a year."

"Anyone want to explain how that's possible?"

Kiran shrugged. "I don't think Kel understood the math entirely, or if she did, she certainly didn't try to explain it to us."

"The math is stupid and I reject it and all its works," Peter mumbled, not opening his eyes.

"Of course, I have no way to confirm any of this," Kiran continued, "but our team went through on the assumption that they would be there for nine hundred days."

The third thing he learned — and the only piece of good news to be found — was that the portal sites were much closer together on the other side than they were on Earth. The abductees had not been scattered across the planet, but were probably all in the same location.

This bit of luck was promptly counterbalanced by the fourth thing, which was that the locals on the other side used the portals as a source of slave labor. According to Kel, who was Peter and Kiran's rather mysterious alien informant, everyone who came through from Earth was rounded up and taken to a nearby labor camp.

"She told us that she'd met a few members of other races who had been taken to Venen-ka and later sold back to this side," Kiran said. "The Nyth — that's the species from the other side of the portal — are known as weapons dealers and slave traders. They hire mercenaries from various worlds to work security for them, and Kel knew some of those as well, before she came to Earth."

"This Kel seems to move in interesting circles," Natasha said.

For the first time, Kiran seemed hesitant. "Kel… can take some getting used to."

"She's actually totally nice," Peter chimed in. "My husband likes her a bunch, and he's got a good sense about people. But yeah, she can also be… y'know. Kind of fucking terrifying sometimes. It's complex."

The fifth thing was that if they planned to effect a rescue, the upcoming portal was their final opportunity. It was going to open in about eighteen hours, and once more a day after that, and then it wouldn't be seen on Earth again for over a century. The team that had gone across in Denver was holding their escape until the final portal so that the Nyth would have no opportunity to retaliate.

That team consisted of four. Jean and Kel were the combatants, and Aaron and Alisha were the support personnel. Kel's race had been known to do business with the Nyth, and she'd believed that she would be able to get a job with the labor camp staff in some capacity. The other three had planned to be taken captive with the rest of the abductees.

It wasn't exactly the complement that Steve would have assigned to safeguard and rescue over a hundred people from unknown enemy forces.

"Did they have anything resembling a plan when they went through?" asked Natasha, who might have had a similar thought.

"Stay alive, keep everyone else alive, learn how the Nyth track the portals, formulate an escape route, and make a run for it at the last minute," Kiran said. "As I'm sure you've noticed, there was a great deal that Kel couldn't predict about the specific conditions."

"Including whether some reinforcements might come in handy?"

Kiran gave her a chilly look. "Well, we didn't think it likely that the other side would have many airports that needed destroying, but if that turns out to be incorrect, I'm sure Jean will be glad to have your expertise."

Peter's eyes shot open. "Oh dear," he whispered.

Sam's voice came through, indignantly, "Did I just hear what I think I just heard?"

"I really couldn't say," Kiran shot back, "but I'm happy to repeat myself if your reception was poor."

"Kid, you are talking shit about things you don't understand."

"And you like to break things that don't belong to you," Kiran said. "I suppose we all have our flaws."

"All right, that's enough," Steve said sharply. "There's plenty of blame to go around for what happened in Leipzig, but rehashing that fight isn't going to help us right now. Let's stay focused on what we need to know for the rescue mission."

Kiran looked back at Steve. "One thing _you_ need to know, Captain, is that I'm not the only one who distrusts your judgment. Neither Jean nor Kel will take your orders. Prepare yourself."

He clenched his jaw hard until the urge to snap back had ebbed a little. "I'll keep it in mind," he managed instead.

The anger was a hot pressure behind his eyes. Up until the portals had redirected everyone's attention, the press had been subjecting Steve and his team to an unrelenting barrage of criticism that had left him feeling scraped raw. Kiran's belittling attitude was just more of the same — a knee-jerk response based on incomplete information — and Steve knew that he should let it roll off him, he did… but it was getting harder and harder to sit quietly without setting the record straight.

There was always collateral damage. He'd seen enough of war to know that in his bones. He could try to minimize it, and he could regret it deeply, but if inaction would lead to something far worse, then he would always, always choose to act. On that day at the compound, Ross had trotted out the familiar litany: New York, DC, Sokovia. Except every one of those situations would have had a death toll in the millions if the Avengers hadn't intervened. Steve lamented the circumstances, but stood behind the actions.

Since then, he'd mentally placed Leipzig in the same category. Given the information he'd had at the time, he'd done the right thing. A squadron of five Winter Soldiers in the hands of someone like Zemo was a global catastrophe waiting to happen. Of course he'd wanted to sit Tony down and explain the situation, but it would have been too risky to gamble the entire operation on the hope that Tony would listen, and believe him, and agree to look the other way long enough to let the team do their jobs.

The fact that Tony had shown up ready for war made it pretty clear how the conversation would have gone if he'd tried.

(Siberia… got murkier. But in Siberia, they hadn't hurt anyone else, only each other.)

Peter was rapidly looking back and forth from the front seat to the back. "Is it done now?" he asked. "Can the fighting be done now, please? Only this is my rental car, it's rented in my real name with my real credit card, and if your Germany debate starts to include, like, visual aids, I'm the one who's gonna have to pay for it."

There was an obvious crack to be made about who among them was likely to destroy another person's car, but to Steve's surprise, Kiran let it pass.

"Peter and I weren't as involved as the others in planning for Venen-ka," Kiran said, turning to face forward again. "I have a few miscellaneous pieces of information about the other side, but I don't know what would be relevant to you. Maybe it's better now if you ask specific questions."

"Um," Peter said, "if they're really going to go, I think I know which piece should come next."

At which point Steve learned the sixth thing, which was that the Nyth marked their prisoners with strike brands.

A grim silence fell over both cars.

"So not only are our people being used as slave labor," Sam said, his voice tight with disgust, "but they've also been branded like cattle?"

"I am really looking forward to putting these guys out of business," Natasha said.

"Seconded," said Clint.

"It was my fault!" Peter suddenly cried out. Steve looked at him sharply, and he quailed under the attention, but still said, "Champaign. I didn't— okay, Mt. Hood sucked, but there was no way to tell where the first portal was going to hit until it did. No one could have prevented that. And then Denver, the big group? We got a late start because we had to confirm Mt. Hood first, _and_ it was our first time trying to track it, so there was literally no way that we could have gotten there in time to get anybody out, but at least we knew what was going to happen, right? And there were things they were going to do — Kel and Jean and everyone — to try and make it not so bad for people, and to fix everyone afterward, so we figured maybe it would turn out okay. But then we were too late _again_ in Champaign, even though we should have had plenty of time that time, and I was the one driving, so that makes it my fault, what happened to them. Iron Man too."

"No, it was my fault," Kiran countered. "I'm the one who lost the trail."

"Which you wouldn't have done if we hadn't been so far behind it."

"There's no way to know that. I thought I understood how it moved when I'd only tracked it once before. It surprised me, and I lost it. That's why we were late."

"But—"

"Neither of you are responsible for how alien slave traders run their business," Natasha interrupted firmly. "Mistakes happen in the field. Learn from them, do better, and move on."

Both of them subsided.

"What I don't understand," Steve said, "is why you're trying to manage this situation entirely on your own. Why didn't you warn anyone before it started?"

"Jean did try to warn people," Kiran said. "I know she traded emails with someone in Homeland Security, and she might have tried a few other offices as well. But we had no evidence, barely any specifics, no way to tell when it was going to start until it had already started, and no way to stop it. No one listened. Frankly, I barely believed it."

"You could have come forward after the first portal," Steve said.

This earned him another scornful look. "You did notice that I'm tracking it with magic, right? The only reason I agreed to do this for Jean is that she never once so much as hinted that I should out myself to the federal government. That part is not open to debate."

"Let's stay on topic," Natasha said before Steve could retort. "How certain are you that the other side has the technology to track the portals?"

"I'm not certain of anything," Kiran said, still sounding frosty. "But four good friends of mine were certain enough to stake their lives on it."

"Theirs, and over a hundred other people's," Steve said.

"Very true," Kiran shot back. "Feel free not to add your names to the list. I still think it's a bad idea for you to go."

"Okay, again with the fighting and not with the briefing!" Peter protested. "Just… do the environmental stuff. That's useful, right?"

The remainder of Kiran's information was useful, as far as it went. The weather on the other side was temperate and subject to relatively little seasonal variation. The terrain was dominated by vast forests. The water was dangerous to drink unless it had been treated in some manner that Kel knew but Kiran didn't. Likewise, almost all of the local plants were toxic to humans. Predators generally stayed clear of the settlements, but they were common in the undeveloped areas of the planet, and they tended to be large. Herbivores came in all shapes and sizes, and most, like the plant life, were not edible.

In Venen-ka, each portal remained open for about three hours. Since it was not unheard of for worlds that had been targeted by the portals to send explosives or other weapons through instead of prisoners, the immediate vicinity of the landing site would be clear of hostiles. The enemy forces would be waiting on the perimeter, and would sweep through the area once the portal had closed.

All of these facts came with the disclaimer, mentioned often, that Kiran was only repeating what Kel had learned from various sources who might or might not have had up-to-date information, which they might or might not have conveyed accurately.

Still, the Howling Commandos had run ops on sketchier intel. It was enough for a start.

Kiran then requested quiet in order to concentrate on the current portal, and quiet carried them out of Illinois and most of the way across Indiana.

Ten months in hostile territory. Steve hadn't anticipated that. Supplies were one obvious problem, although nontoxic food and water had to be available somewhere if the prisoners were being fed.

More critically, it left his people with two choices: be taken prisoner, or evade capture for the better part of a year. Jean's team had all gone with the first option, except, they hoped, for Kel, and she was also significantly constrained by having to play an undercover role. Since their projected stay had been thirty months rather than ten, Steve understood their decision, but now he was going to make a different call. He couldn't ask his people to submit to the Nyth and their style of brutality, he simply couldn't, and having all five of them infiltrate the labor camp didn't gain them much. A covert team, on the other hand, could be invaluable. They just had to remain covert until they were needed.

Nat, Clint and Sam all had the requisite survival skills and experience. Wanda didn't. If she still wanted to go — and Steve was by no means certain of that — then he would have to find some time to talk to her about exactly what she was getting into. Ten months of bivouacking, staying on the move, stealing food and water — it was going to be rough. Wanda's abilities were a huge advantage and Steve hated to lose them, but maybe it would be better for her if she stayed on Earth.

Because once they were on the other side, Steve wasn't going to be able to look out for her. Someone still needed to be inside the camp in order to make contact with Jean and coordinate their efforts. Plus, if the Nyth took one prisoner — one who had put up a hell of a fight — they would be less likely to notice a few more slipping away.

That was the tactical argument, anyway. Steve also hoped that even if Captain America wasn't the most popular figure in the media these days, it still might give the other prisoners some kind of morale boost to see that the Avengers had come for them.

Plus he needed to find Tony. Steve had meant what he'd said in his letter: for all that had happened between them, he would never leave Tony to face danger alone. Maybe bringing him back would be a step on the road to mending fences.

They were about half an hour west of Richmond when Kiran said abruptly, "We need to stop."

Peter jolted in surprise and nearly dropped his computer. "I'm awake!" he yelped.

"What's wrong?" Natasha asked.

Kiran was looking up into the night sky at something Steve couldn't see. "I'm about to lose it. We need to stop _now_."

Natasha immediately pulled over onto the shoulder. Behind them, Clint followed suit.

They all poured out of their respective cars. Kiran strode briskly into the field of grass to the side of the highway, and Peter followed, staying a few yards back.

"What's up?" Sam asked.

"Tracking update," said Steve.

A flash of blue light caught his eye. For a moment, Kiran stood at the center of a vivid blue circle, about twenty feet in diameter. Then the light faded, leaving scorched grass in its place.

"Here," Kiran said to Peter. "Set it up here."

"On it."

Wanda was staring at Kiran with rapt fascination.

Kiran noticed her interest, and stepped back onto the shoulder. "Hey."

"Hey," she said cautiously.

"I'm Kiran."

"Wanda."

"It's been in my family for generations," Kiran said. "How about you?"

"Um." Wanda tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "It was alien technology."

"Huh."

Kiran held out one cupped hand. A sphere of blue light gathered, then floated upward into the air. When it reached eye level, it collapsed and flared out again into the shape of a flower, which gently dissipated on the evening breeze.

Steve hadn't seen Wanda smile like that since before Lagos.

"It's good to meet you," Kiran said. "I never thought I'd get the chance."

Wanda gathered a little ball of her own magic. It danced across her fingers until she gave it a flick into the air, where it spun out into a set of interlocking rings. They curved around and through each other in an eye-twisting pattern, then folded up and vanished.

"It's good to meet you, too," she said.

From the field where he was kneeling with his laptop, Peter cleared his throat loudly and said, "Don't mind me, I'm just the tech support guy. My time is your time. Take as much of it as you need."

Kiran said to Wanda, "If you're interested, I can show you what I'm trying to do."

"I'd like that."

The two of them joined Peter on the grass, and began a quiet conversation about the tracking program. Steve let their voices fade to the back of his awareness.

The rest of them gathered between the two cars.

"I assume you've noticed that Foster's tech won't help us once we're over there," Clint said. "Anything she builds is probably going to run on electricity."

Natasha nodded. "If we go, we're gambling everything on the first team's exit plan."

"The scenario makes sense, at least," said Steve. "These… Nyth are accustomed to acquiring their labor force through the portals. They have to be able to predict the incoming site so that they can establish a perimeter and secure their new prisoners."

Even as he said it, though, he knew exactly how flimsy it was. His team was far too experienced not to know it, too.

Steve sighed, and switched gears. "I have to go," he said. "The rest of you don't. This isn't even close to the mission we—"

"Steve?" Sam said.

"Yeah?"

"Shut up."

He looked at each of their faces — calm, resolute, and stubborn as hell — and knew that he'd lost before he'd even begun.

Steve smiled sheepishly. In this particular instance, the loss didn't rankle him at all.

"I assume you've been working on a plan," Natasha said.

He had. He told them.

"Yeah, that's pretty much what we figured, too," Sam said, gesturing between himself and Clint. "Except it shouldn't be you on the inside, it should be one of us." He crossed his arms. "I'll do it."

"No, I'll do it," said Clint.

" _I'm_ doing it," Steve said firmly. "Whoever gets caught has to keep the guards distracted long enough for the covert team to escape the perimeter without detection. Under the circumstances, I'm the most qualified."

"I'm afraid Steve's right," Natasha said.

"Thank you."

"But I'm coming with you."

"What? No, you're not. Nat, you've heard what these guys do to their prisoners."

It was amazing how much disdain she could pack into a subtle roll of the eyes. "Oh, I think I can can handle it," she said dryly. "And you'll need me with you. Once we're inside the camp, I can go places you can't."

"Such as?"

"The women's barracks, where Jean is most likely to be."

"You have no way of knowing how—"

"Also," she said, "we might need someone who can break into restricted parts of the camp, or slip in and out to carry messages." Her apologetic expression was entirely fake. "You're not stealthy."

Steve crossed his arms and glared. "I _have_ run ops behind enemy lines, you know."

"Were you wearing red, white and blue at the time?"

"Wouldn't that prove that he was even _more_ stealthy?" Sam suggested.

"No, it proves that he had a great team and ridiculous amounts of luck," Natasha countered.

Which was true on both counts, but more to the point: she was playing, which meant that the real reason was something important to her.

Steve sighed. "I know I can't stop you," he said. "But I'd like to know what you're really planning."

The glint in her eyes conveyed approval. "Maybe you're not the only one who wants to check on him," she said.

"You're almost the only one," Clint muttered.

"Clint—"

"No, let's get this straight," he said. "I'm not doing this for _him_. Alien slavers steal over a hundred of our people? Yeah, someone needs to shut them down, and I don't see too many other volunteers who can handle the job. That's why I'm going. It doesn't have one damn thing to do with Stark."

"It does for me," Natasha said.

"Fine!"

"Fine."

"Whatever."

"Our objective," Sam said quickly, "is to keep the prisoners as safe as we can until we find a way to break them out and get them to the portal. We _do_ agree on that much, right?"

"Of course."

"No kidding."

"Fine." Sam shook his head. "So Steve and Nat are on the inside — good luck with that, by the way — while the rest of us run reconnaissance until it's go time. Or until we actually land in this place and something happens in the first five seconds that sends our plans straight to hell."

"Sounds about right," Natasha said. "Given all the unknowns, I doubt we can be any more specific until we actually get there." She paused, and frowned slightly. "Although there's still a piece that doesn't track."

"Which piece?"

"The one named Kel," she said. "She's human enough to be just another face in the crowd in Denver, but also inhuman enough that as soon as she introduces herself, she gets offered a job? It doesn't add up."

"That might have been their plan," Sam said, "but there's no guarantee it actually worked out for them. This team? I get the feeling that overconfidence can be an issue."

She tilted her head noncommittally. "We'll see."

"Has it occurred to everyone that the return trip could be a very public event?" Sam looked around the group, and got some answering nods. "I don't know about the rest of you, but I'd love to find a version of this that doesn't land us all back in military custody."

"Yeah, we need an escape route," said Clint, "and it had better be a good one, because Wanda won't go back to the Raft. _Really_ won't go back. Anyone tries, I promise you it'll get messy."

Steve might have been the one who'd shut down the Raft's security systems and unlocked certain doors, but it had been Clint who'd immediately elbowed his way past the rest of them and bolted two more levels down to Wanda's cell. Who'd shorted out the collar and unbuckled the straitjacket. Who'd taken her by the hand and guided her, glassy-eyed and silent, to the small Wakandan submersible, and sat with her all the way back to the rendezvous point.

Steve had only been in that place for a few minutes. He couldn't pretend to know what it had cost her… what it had cost any of them, for that matter. But he knew that he could never let his people pay that kind of price again.

"We'll work something out before we go," Steve said. "And if it comes to that, whatever they send after us, I'll keep them distracted long enough to cover your escape. I owe you that."

"We should talk to these guys, too." Clint jerked his head in the direction of Peter and Kiran. "None of them seem too fond of the spotlight. Could be they've already made some kind of arrangements."

"Good idea."

He took a look at the group in the field. Kiran and Wanda were both on their knees at the center of the circle, side by side and facing in opposite directions, eyes closed. Peter was standing a few feet outside the circle with a cell phone in each hand. His thumbs moved over the touchscreens expertly as his attention flicked between them.

There was something to be learned about Jean from the composition of her teams. Peter and Kiran had the skills to track the portals, but the two of them alone didn't have any realistic shot of evacuating the targeted areas. They were doomed to fail, just like the team that had gone through the portal seemed to Steve to be doomed to fail, consisting as it did of only four against an entire hostile planet.

The whole op had an air of desperation about it. Jean wanted to help, and he respected her intentions, but she clearly didn't have the resources to carry out her plans.

Admittedly, Steve's own resources weren't exactly what they used to be.

Peter looked up suddenly, in time to catch Steve staring. He gave a cheery little wave, then stashed his phones in different pockets and wandered over to join the group.

"Hey," he said. "It seemed like you wanted to have a private meeting or whatever, so I figured I'd keep my distance."

"We're done for now," Natasha told him.

"Cool."

"Can you tell how much longer we're going to be here?"

"Probably only a few more minutes," Peter said. "It seems to be going pretty fast."

"Good."

Peter then visibly steeled himself, took a deep breath, and announced, "So here's the thing. Kiran has powers. You all noticed that. That's obvious. And the thing is, in the course of one afternoon, four Avengers — or, like, three Avengers and that other guy, the big-and-small guy, and that was some weird shit right there, I mean, I thought I was pretty accustomed to weird shit by now, but _that_ guy was— anyway, the point is that you went from being Avengers to being locked at the bottom of the ocean, _just_ like that. Including the one of you who arguably has the most powers out of all of you. There's a precedent being set there, and for the people with powers who _don't_ have Avengering on their resumé? It's kind of a terrifying one. And maybe it's not fair to be angry at _you_ for that, but the thing is? People are scared. The people without powers are scared, and the people with them are scared of what the people without them are going to do about it. And when the most high-profile enhanced folk in the world take an internal debate and externalize it to the tune of one trashed airport, it doesn't exactly… y'know. Help." His arms went out to the sides in an exaggerated shrug. "Anyway. Kiran doesn't like you and that's why, and it sucks and I'm sorry, but the whole situation sucks."

Steve found himself feeling more chastened by that rambling explanation than he had been by all of Kiran's jabs. "None of us ever wanted it to go that far," he said quietly. "But at the time, there was a lot more at stake than just our own disagreement."

"Oh, no, totally! I'm sure there were circumstances. I'm sure there were _tons_ of circumstances. It's not like Captain America just blows shit up for the fun of it, right? I mean, Jean and Kiran and them can go on about 'irresponsibility' _this_ and 'failure of leadership' _that_ , but me, I figure it's a lot easier to criticize after the fact than it is to make good decisions when you're right in the middle of, like, the _stuff_."

Nat's expression was, by her standards, gleeful. "There was quite a lot of _stuff_ being thrown around that day, wouldn't you say, Steve?"

Sam asked, "Just how many enhanced people do you know, anyway?"

"Some? A few. Several." Peter scratched the back of his head. "Jean kind of has a reputation for being a normal who won't be an asshole to you if you've got powers."

"What about you?"

" _I_ try not to be an asshole to anyone."

"No," Sam said patiently, "I mean, are you enhanced?"

"Me? No way. I'm a dime a dozen."

Which, independent of the enhancement question, was blatantly untrue, but they were interrupted from further discussion by the laptop going _ding_.

Peter promptly scampered back over to it. He crouched down to study the screen, then sat back on his heels. Steve heard him whisper, "Oh boy."

The circle of blue light flashed again, and swept upward to form the shape of a dome. It engulfed the two kneeling figures for just a second, then burst like a bubble.

Kiran and Wanda opened their eyes at the same time, and turned to look at each other. From what Steve could make out of Wanda's expression, she seemed overwhelmed and more than a little scared.

Steve waited for an update, but the two of them remained silent and still. "Did you find it?" he prompted.

"Yes," Wanda said, still looking at Kiran.

Sam took a step forward. "Well, do you have a trajectory? Where are we headed?"

"I'm not completely certain," Kiran said, "but I think it wants to go to New York City."

 


	9. Chapter 9

New York. If the twenty-four-hour pattern continued, the portal would appear at the height of rush hour. Steve could imagine the chaos all too vividly. People _had_ to be warned.

"Didn't we just go through this with Chicago?" Clint said. "Turned out to be a false alarm."

"I never predicted Chicago," Kiran said quietly.

"Yeah, they never predicted Chicago," Peter echoed, still staring at the screen. "That was other people. People who… I dunno what they were doing. They were doing it wrong."

"The city can't be evacuated in fifteen hours," Natasha said. "We need a much more specific target."

"It's too early for that," Wanda said. "We have to keep following."

"For how much longer?"

Kiran had become visibly more wan and drained during their few minutes of contact with the portal. "Assuming we can keep up with it, and nothing else goes wrong," they said, not sounding optimistic, "then about two hours before it arrives, we should have the projection down to a few blocks. In principle, even in a densely populated area, that's small enough to evacuate in time."

Sam looked at them askance. "You think you can clear a couple of downtown Manhattan blocks in under two hours? How—"

"Go up," Peter said, then swiftly clapped his hand over his mouth. "Sorry! I didn't mean to— sorry. But the thing is, a region with a lot of high-rises or apartment buildings or whatever is actually easier than other places. The portal goes for street level — and no, I have no idea how it figures out what street level is, but it does. So you don't have to clear the area completely, just send people up." He paused. "In the vertical sense, not the making fun of them sense."

"Pretty sure we all got that," Sam muttered.

"But the catch is that we have to have enough people standing ready to blanket the area and direct everyone — people that people will listen to, I mean, not just like _me_ standing on a street corner and screaming." He looked back at Kiran. "So I guess it comes down to how you want to play this."

Steve wondered briefly if his people, who could at least stand on five different street corners and scream, would have a chance of managing an evacuation on that scale, but quickly dismissed the thought as absurd. They needed an organized, officially sanctioned plan. Judging by the look of resignation on Kiran's face, they'd arrived at the same conclusion.

In lieu of replying, Kiran climbed to their feet, took one step, and promptly collapsed. Steve lurched forward instinctively, but Wanda and Peter were much closer. The two of them gathered Kiran up again and bundled them into the back seat of Peter's car.

"When was the last time you slept?" Wanda asked softly.

Kiran sighed again. "About three portals ago. Unless of course I've lost count."

"Let me track it for a while. You need to rest."

Kiran's eyes were already closing. "Yeah. Okay. For a little while." They tugged on Peter's sleeve. "Ask about Potts. If it sounds good to you…"

"Sure, of course," Peter said. "We've got this. You sleep. It'll be fine."

He quickly retrieved his computer and tossed it into the front seat of the car, then herded the rest of them a few yards back up the road. From the sound of their breathing, Kiran had already drifted off.

Peter's hands were working at each other nervously. "I've been driving since Denver," he said, "but Kiran's been tracking it since Mt. Hood. It's… the thing is, when Jean left, we still thought it was random. Like maybe Denver was just bad luck, and the biggest problem would be if the return trip dumped everyone in the middle of a lake or something. But it _likes_ people. It _hunts_. Jean didn't know that. I think maybe she would have done some things differently if she had."

So Jean didn't have all the answers after all. "You've been doing the best you could," Steve said, "but now it's time to bring in reinforcements."

Peter gave a thoroughly miserable nod. "Yeah. We can't… yeah."

Natasha asked, "Did Kiran just say something about Pepper Potts?"

"Yes, I have been corresponding with Ms. Pepper Potts of Stark Industries," Peter said, and drew himself up a little straighter. "She— I don't even know how she knew to— like, maybe Iron Man told her something? I don't know. But she set up— it's not a honeypot, I checked, it's legit untraceable, and we've been trading messages. Well, actually, I think there's two different people writing from her side, based on, like, word choice patterns and stuff, but one of them is Ms. Pepper Potts of Stark Industries, I'm almost positive."

"Does she believe you?"

"She _wants_ to," Peter said, "but she also knows that she wants to, so she's making herself be extra cautious. But if someone she already trusted could vouch for us? I mean, since she and Iron Man are… at least some of you must have met her before, right?"

There was a general shifting of eyelines toward Steve and Natasha.

Steve knew, in the vaguest of terms, that Natasha had been sent to work undercover at SI several years ago, for the purpose of keeping an eye on Tony back when he'd still been relatively new to his role as Iron Man. He didn't know how Natasha's identity had been uncovered, but he had the impression that she and Pepper had managed to cultivate some level of friendship between them in spite of the initial circumstances.

For his part, he'd met Pepper in the immediate aftermath of the New York invasion, and had encountered her at various other Avenger-related functions since then, although he didn't think he knew her well enough to qualify as a friend. Based on what few interactions they'd had, Steve certainly liked and respected her. She was intelligent, decisive and compassionate — a tough combination to juggle — and from what he'd seen, she'd been a good influence on Tony. Not that it was any of his business, but he couldn't help but wonder what had caused the two of them to separate.

Natasha's smile was wry. "Pepper probably isn't too happy with any of us right now," she said.

"At least she's someone who could walk into a meeting with the mayor of New York without getting arrested," Sam said.

"And who could get a meeting with the mayor of New York in the first place," Clint added.

Wanda frowned. "They might not arrest her, but that doesn't mean they'll believe her."

"No, Pepper by herself still wouldn't be enough," said Natasha, "but we also know how to get in touch with Jane Foster."

"Yes!" Peter exclaimed. "Perfect! Yes, let Jane Foster take the credit — we are _totally_ okay with that. She can have the credit, she can have our data… and then, between the two of them, do you think…?"

"Pepper might be willing to keep both of you out of the public eye," Natasha said, "but I'm sure she'll want to speak with you directly."

Peter nodded. "Yeah, we figured. If it's just her, I mean… she knows all of you, right? She's already, like, enhanced-individual-adjacent? I think it'll be okay. I think. Kiran'll do it."

"Sure, works out great for you," Clint said. "Won't be so great for us if Potts decides to have us arrested herself."

"We're going after Tony," said Steve. "I think she'll understand that."

If Jane and Pepper both got on board, then they would have a credible public face and a credible scientific source. There was still no guarantee that the authorities would listen, of course, but this seemed like the best chance they were going to get. Steve looked around the circle for further comments or objections, and found none.

"Tell Pepper that you're with us, and fill her in on what we want to do," he said to Peter. "Let's see what she says."

 

* * *

 

_Dear Ms. Potts, CEO of Stark Industries,_

_Funny story. You'll never guess who I ran into on the road..._

 

* * *

 

Camp life went on in its monotonous way until the five-month mark, when several noteworthy events occurred in rapid succession.

First, the mining operation slowed down for a few days while the prisoners were sent in batches to the infirmary for a checkup and more shots. Jim the nurse was in attendance, and had clearly been informed that Tony was now officially On The Team, because he and Kel dispensed with the illusion that he needed her permission to talk. Jim's real name was Aaron, Tony learned, and he was in fact a nursing student back on Earth.

Since they were talking freely and all, Tony also inquired, rather pointedly, as to exactly what kinds of drugs they were proposing to jab him with _this_ time.

"You do science problems for Jean now, yes?" Kel said.

"Yes," Tony said solemnly. "Science problems. That's exactly what I do."

"Then you know the rules are different here. Very small amounts, but sometimes the effects…" She made a snowballing sort of gesture. "The changes affect living systems as well. There is damage. Without treatment, humans can only survive a few years here."

That, he had to admit, was a reasonable explanation.

Hard on the heels of that interlude came an abrupt and near-complete turnover in the camp staff. A platoon of forty new Minotaurs marched in from the east one morning, and for the next five days, the camp was hip-deep in Minos while the new ones shadowed the old ones. Then, on the sixth morning, the original complement marched out. Boss Mino stayed on, as did a few of the senior staff.

Tony would have bothered to form an opinion about this turn of events if any of the guards had bothered to evince a personality. As it was, the difference made no difference and therefore was no difference. He was, however, pleased that the boss was still around. They had some unfinished business between them.

Next, it was Jean's turn to disrupt the status quo. She generally acted like she was allergic to him while they were in public, so Tony was rather startled when she sat down next to him at dinner one evening.

Toward the end of the meal, she casually dropped her hand down from the table to the bench between them and tapped it with her fingernail. Tony took the hint and set his own hand down beside hers. Jean's fingers worked their way up his sleeve and pressed something to the inside of his wrist.

Back in the dorm, Tony took off his jacket and found that she'd adorned him with a thin green adhesive strip. That night, for the first time in five months, he didn't fall asleep with the sunset.

He lay on his cot in the near-perfect darkness and tried unsuccessfully not to fidget. He felt jittery and wired, and his heart was pounding so loudly he couldn't imagine how it wasn't waking everyone else… but at the same time, everything seemed disconnected and surreal. Mixing uppers and downers was such a kick.

After a stretch of time that felt interminable but was probably no more than half an hour, the door opened, and Jean beckoned.

She'd already collected a following. Andre was waiting behind the door, as was a bland-looking guy in his thirties. They moved up to the last building in line, and Jean retrieved her fourth selection, a young woman with short hair and a tightly controlled posture whom Tony suspected was a vet.

Jean pointed out across the empty space between the town square and the infirmary. Tony spotted another figure standing just inside the treeline — too distant to ID the face, but the missing right hand gave it away.

Jean's hand said _hold_. She peered cautiously around the corner of the dorm, then signaled _follow_. The five of them jogged across the grass and fetched up behind the little storage shed that stood near the infirmary. Jean quickly chivvied them around to the west and signaled another hold. In response to Tony's quizzical look, she switched places with him and let him take a quick peek back the way they'd come.

A pair of Minos come strolling out from around the far side of the prison building. They held a course parallel to the treeline, about five yards inside of it. Their pace and posture suggested that this was a routine and boring assignment, not a cause to be on high alert.

Interesting. They did have night patrols, but not nearly enough to maintain a secure perimeter. More of that carefully cultivated overconfidence, maybe.

The Minos' route would have brought the prisoners into their line of sight in a few more minutes, but Jean ducked her group around the next corner in plenty of time, and led them across the final stretch of open space to the trees.

Kel had crept further back undercover once Jean had started her run. She didn't show herself again until the entire group was a good twenty yards into the forest.

"It's all right," Jean said to her entourage. "Kel is with me."

Military Lady looked unimpressed. "You don't really think that's still a secret, do you?"

Jean shrugged. "I hope that the Mjentur will be surprised, at least. Follow her and stay together. We have some ground to cover."

They hiked in silence, carefully picking their way through the uncertain footing of the untamed underbrush. As a general rule, Tony didn't really _do_ forests, so he had no particular sense for how Earthlike or alien this one was. The deeper into the woods they got, the more the ambient noise picked up: chirps and clicks and squawks that bespoke a varied wildlife population, although he hadn't yet spotted anything that moved. The smells, too, grew more varied, from the little bursts of sharpness whenever someone's step disturbed the fallen leaves, to the fresher, greener smells of the trees and the various other plants that clung to them, and beneath it all, a hint of decay. They all melded into a combination that he could only describe as _organic_.

There was enough of a chill in the night air that Tony was glad that he'd thought to bring his jacket, but it wasn't cold enough to be dangerous, or even all that uncomfortable. He wondered if this planet had a winter — or if this _was_ the winter, and summer was going to be scorching. Or maybe they were near to the planet's equator, and weren't going to see much seasonal variation at all.

The sky held far fewer stars than there would have been at home, but they shone out with that particular brightness that came of an unpolluted atmosphere and no competing city lights. There was no moon; maybe this place didn't have one.

And Tony was abruptly struck by the full weight of knowledge that he was on an _alien planet_ — which was absurd, obviously, because that particular piece of news was five months old and counting, and also this planet _sucked_. It was just… well, for one thing, he was still pretty buzzed from the stimulant/tranquilizer cocktail. But also, on a day-to-day basis, the circumstances of their captivity were so specific and immediate that the cosmic picture barely registered.

Out here, though, in the peaceful near-solitude, there was just enough room for wonder.

The hike wasn't that long, actually. Fifteen minutes at the outside. Their route terminated when they reached what looked like a wide black curtain that had been hung from high up in the trees.

Kel turned right and led them around the curtain, which turned out to be made of tightly interwoven strips of some kind of moss. (Of course it was plants. Everything was plants.) On the other side of it was an open space about thirty feet across that had been stripped of undergrowth and other debris.

The clearing was bordered by a familiar vine. Jean crouched by the edge of the curtain and uncovered a small pitcher of the catalyst, and poured out a bit of it into the tangle of plants by her feet. The blue-white glow spread its way along the perimeter. In its light, Tony could see that Jean was dabbling in misappropriation of company property: four pickaxes lay in a line on the ground.

They did introductions. Andre's real name turned out to be Frank. The woman was Gabriela, and the other man was Pavel.

"I've spoken to each of you individually," Jean said. "In approximately fifteen months, we will overthrow the camp and return to Earth through the final portal. Although I plan to eliminate the majority of the Mjentur by indirect means, some confrontation is inevitable." Her eyes traveled over each of them in turn. "You all have combat experience in one form or another. I've brought you here to ask if you're willing to join our fighting force."

Well. That explained the hardware, at least. Tony took a second to be grateful that Jean wasn't one of those people who figured that he was useless outside of a suit… although, considering the primitive nature of the weaponry, he might have been okay with the snub.

Frank (né Andre) stepped forward and hefted one of the pickaxes. "You start a free-for-all down in that cave," he said, "no chance you get everyone out of it alive."

"True," Jean said. "If all goes to plan, the staff in the cavern, the processing plant and the kitchen will be neutralized en masse within a few minutes of each other, with no one-on-one combat required. The wildcards are the commandant and his staff, and any stragglers who happen to be between those three locations when we make our move. Ideally, Kel and I would take them down ourselves, but I can't assume that every surviving Mjentur will be obliging enough to confine their attacks to us. I need teams who can back us up."

"I don't even know where to start," Gabriela said. "You and her? _That's_ the rescue team?"

"The active combat component of it, at least," Jean said.

"Right. Okay. _You're_ scary, I'm on board with that, but…" She gestured vaguely. "Does she even _understand_ us, let alone—"

"I speak Human," Kel said.

Jean cringed. " _English_."

"Yes, whatever."

"Fantastic," said Gabriela. "What can you _do_ , exactly?"

Kel smiled. It wasn't a _mean_ smile, as such, but it was unmistakably the smile of someone who had the winning hand (so to speak) and knew it.

"You should have weapons now," she said.

Tony fully agreed with that assessment. He darted forward to pick up one of the remaining pickaxes, and when he looked up again, Kel was holding a sword.

She was holding a _sword_ , like… like that was the sort of thing that people _did_. It was one thing to see the Minotaurs wearing them, because they barely looked real in the first place. But Kel was fifteen feet away from him, and she had a sword and he had a goddamn mining tool, and _this_ was how they were going to fight for their freedom. Wood and metal against sharper metal, winner take all, loser hacked to bits. The hike had had a dreamlike tinge to it, but this moment was inescapably, brutally real.

Jean backed up to the edge of the curtain, where she stood with crossed arms and a critical expression like a coach at tryouts. Tony and the other recruits spread themselves out around the circle, and the space between them began to fill with the nervous energy of imminent combat. Kel, by contrast, stood in the center with the point of her sword resting on the ground in front of her, completely calm.

"Kill me," she said.

It said something about… _something_ that all four of them hesitated, and looked at Jean.

"Go ahead," said Jean. "You won't get close."

The next twenty seconds were eventful. By the end of them, four disarmed humans were flat on their backs, and one smug, scar-faced alien was right back where she'd started.

Frank spoke for all of them when he said, "...The _fuck_?"

Kel set her blade on the ground, and crouched to pick up someone's discarded pickaxe. "This," she said, "is a tool, not a weapon, unless you learn to use it like a weapon. The Mjentur are stronger and faster. They train for this kind of combat. You must work together to overwhelm and disable quickly."

"I've been searching for the right way to put this," Tony said, having decided that there was no right way to put it. "What the hell _are_ you?"

Her chin came up. "I am Kel verak Tor, shorath j'Brenithi."

He nodded slowly. "Right. That didn't help me at all."

Kel tossed the pickaxe and retrieved her sword. "I am very good at this," she said.

Fair enough.

She stooped to offer Tony her arm, of which there was just enough left below the elbow to grab, and hauled him to his feet.

The other three were also dusting themselves off and rearming, and trying to be subtle about keeping a respectful distance from Kel and her sword.

Gabriela said, "So, if you… _do_ this sort of thing, does that mean, uh, the arm…?"

"Lost in combat, yes," Kel said. "It was an easy lie to the Nyth: because I lost my sword hand, there is nothing I can do on j'Brenn, and this is why I left. Not true, of course, but it is something that many would believe about us."

"My request remains just that — a request," said Jean. "Obviously there are significant risks. If you prefer not to take on this role, nothing further will be said."

As a matter of fact, Tony _did_ prefer not to have to bludgeon a Minotaur to death with a pickaxe, and he was pretty sure that any reasonable person would feel similarly. But if he didn't do it, then someone else would have to, and… well. Somewhere in there, barely recognizable through all the political bullshit that had piled up back on Earth, was the _point_.

"My social calendar's pretty crowded, but I think I can fit you in," he said.

Pavel, who was turning out to be a man of few words, gave a curt nod of his head. Gabriela's attitude toward Kel had softened considerably upon hearing that she'd been wounded in combat, and she also indicated her assent.

Frank scowled fiercely. "You really think this Medieval Times shit will be enough to get us home?"

"I do," said Jean.

"If you're wrong—" his finger stabbed out "— _you_ murdered us. All of us. You get that?"

"The thought is never far from my mind," she said evenly. "But I'm not wrong."

"Yeah," he said after a while. "All right. I'm sure as hell not leaving it to the rest of you. So what happens now?"

"Do it again," Kel said. "One at a time. I will show you why you were disarmed so quickly."

The lessons began in earnest. Tony casually slipped to the back of the line, the better to gather more data on Kel's newest set of skills.

In fairness, it wasn't like this was the first time he'd met a diminutive woman who wildly overmatched him at hand-to-hand. He tried to assess whether Romanoff could have torn through the four of them just as easily, and… all right, yes, she probably could have, with a weapon she knew well — and Tony wouldn't have necessarily guessed that that weapon was a sword, but now that he was thinking about it, he sure as hell wasn't going to bet that the Black Widow _couldn't_ handle a sword. Anyway. With a sword or something similar, versus four nervous amateurs with hand tools, she absolutely could have done it.

So the trouncing, in and of itself, wasn't proof of anything. However, Kel had already demonstrated extra-human capabilities, and Tony had the feeling that he still hadn't seen their full extent.

He sidled up to Jean while Kel was occupied with Pavel. "Help me with the parameters here," he said, with a nod in Kel's direction. "Enhanced strength, yes or no?"

"No," Jean replied. "Only what could be attained with a standard human body in an aggressively militaristic culture where combat training begins in early childhood."

And _that_ sounded like quite the story, but Tony put it on hold for the time being. "Got it. And I already know about the self-repairing trick."

"Yes, that one's rather good."

"Reflexes?"

"Arguably enhanced; certainly at the extreme upper end of human capability."

"Senses?"

Jean very slowly started to let one hand drift behind her back. "Human standard, but with a bonus feature," she said. "You've seen some of what she can do with her touch. Direct skin contact allows her to assume complete control of another living body. From a distance, she can't control other life forms, but she remains aware of them. The more sophisticated the nervous system, the more detail she can read." Just as slowly, Jean brought her hand back to her side, now grasping a six-inch hunting knife by the hilt. "The term 'empath' falls rather short, but I haven't yet found a satisfactory alternative."

Kel's back had been turned to them the entire time. As far as Tony could tell, she was entirely focused on Pavel. Frank and Gabriela, likewise, were paying attention to the lesson and hadn't noticed the knife.

Jean's arm was a sudden blur of motion. Without missing a beat, Kel spun in place and swept her blade through the air, deflecting the knife off into the trees, and continued smoothly through the rotation in plenty of time to block the pickaxe and send it flying in the other direction.

Frank and Gabriela both responded with some colorful commentary, which Jean weathered calmly. Kel seemed to accept the stealth murder attempt as unremarkable.

Once the complaining had wound down, Tony said, "Yeah, that's _not_ what the word 'empath' means."

"Agreed," said Jean, "but in an effort to be more accurate, one finds oneself committing such acts of violence against the Greek language as 'teleneuropath', which is hardly an improvement."

He grimaced. "No, that'll never catch on."

"Okay, _stop_ ," Gabriela said. "What the _hell_ are you talking about?"

Kel said, "I know where you are and what you will do. All of you, all the time."

"How?"

She shrugged. "I'm not human. It helps to remember this, I think."

These details were throwing new light on Jean's determination to keep Kel away from the military back on Earth. Her healing factor alone would have made a hell of a prize, but this sixth sense was on another level entirely. If Tony had this right, she essentially had a permanent three-sixty-degree HUD built into her brain. Even if she could only pick up enemy combatants and not, say, drones or IEDs, receiving that kind of intel without the need for instrumentation still represented an immense advantage on the battlefield. Tony wondered… god, he didn't even know where to start: how far it reached, how much detail she could actually read, whether it could be blocked or disrupted—

Jean nudged him with her elbow. "You're reverse-engineering her with your eyes," she murmured.

He winced. "Right. Sorry."

"Go practice."

"Yeah, I'll just go practice."

It took a while for the weirdness of the pickaxe-versus-sword matchup to wear off, but eventually it settled down into simply a new style of training. The basic tactic that they were being drilled in was, as Kel had said, to overwhelm and disable: four humans versus one Mino, where two of them kept the sword engaged so that the rest had easy openings for incapacitating strikes. The goal was for each fight to last only a few seconds.

It helped that Kel turned out to be a pretty good teacher. True, she made it clear that all of them were doing everything wrong, but her corrections were concrete and detailed, building up from footwork and balance to grip and striking angles. Tony knew that it would take more than one session to turn technique into muscle memory, but at least it felt like he was improving and could continue to do so.

By his estimation, Jean kept them out there for about ninety minutes — enough time for everyone to get some solid practice in, but not so long that work the next day would be completely miserable. After she declared their time to be up, she doused the vine-light and Kel led them back to camp. They had to lurk inside the treeline for a few minutes until a Mino patrol passed, but otherwise they made it back to the dorms without incident. Jean collected one green strip from each wrist as she dropped them off.

The after-hours training sessions became a regular feature. Jean passed out the stimulant strips and took them out of camp every fifteen days. Based on the relatively low frequency, Tony guessed that she was running other teams on different nights. He also guessed that she would be keeping those other teams' identities compartmentalized, because the lady had a theme and she stuck to it.

And there was one more interesting development to add to the list. It started a few mornings after that first evening stroll, while the prisoners were at breakfast (and no, the food hadn't improved). As usual, Tony was sitting with Lily, Mr. Lily and some of the other Champaign abductees. One of these was a deaf woman who had been assigned, like Lily, to kitchen and camp maintenance duty.

Aaron, in a significant break from precedent, joined them. He offered a friendly smile to the deaf lady and, in full view of the entire camp and every fucking Minotaur on morning guard duty, began addressing her in ASL.

For one electric second, Tony was ready to leap across the table and tackle him to the ground, because at least a fight among the prisoners probably wouldn't end in a public flogging.

But what actually happened, aside from Tony having a fucking coronary, was… nothing. Not a damned thing. Whether the Minos didn't understand that this was communication, or if their instructions were so specific that only _verbal_ communication was forbidden, Tony couldn't begin to guess. The woman cautiously replied, and the guards continued not to care.

Tony looked two tables over at Jean — and yeah, he was supposed to be pretending not to know her, but fuck it — and her eyes carried the kind of fury that Tony knew could have only come from being terrified out of her wits. Aaron looked over at her as well, because apparently today was the day for breaking protocol, and his expression proclaimed, _I told you so_.

That evening, the deaf woman taught the rest of her table how to sign the alphabet. Her name was Ann. Lily's real name was Maryam.

 

* * *

 

Civilian aircraft weren't authorized to land at the Avengers compound, so the final leg of the trip was by car. Maria insisted on driving; Pepper doubted that she'd gotten any sleep on the flight either, but had to admit that she was better at faking it. One of Maria's many ID tags got them through the innocuous-looking security gate, and then Pepper got her first look at the Avengers' most recent base of operations.

The compound resembled a college campus far more than it did a military facility. It sat on the edge of one of the hundreds of little lakes that dotted upstate New York, and was surrounded by a thick border of trees. The various buildings were scattered across a vibrant green lawn. More trees and other greenery broke up the open spaces and softened the straight lines of the internal roads. The place was rather lovely, in fact, and Pepper could imagine that in autumn, once the leaves began to turn, it would be stunning.

"The hangar and training facilities are up there," Maria said as they drove past the turnoff, "and the living quarters are just ahead. The compound was originally intended to accommodate the Avengers plus a substantial number of support personnel, but we know how that one worked out."

In the immediate aftermath of Sokovia, it had seemed for a moment like a new SHIELD might arise, untainted by Hydra. Nick Fury's helicarrier had played a critical role in keeping the death toll relatively low, and in light of that fact, a few voices in the government had begun to speak up in support of an agency that could work with the Avengers to protect the country and the world from extraterrestrial and other unprecedented global threats.

Then Thaddeus Ross had happened. His rise to power had been built in no small measure on the panic and shock that had swept the country after Hydra had been uncovered in the first place. In response to the revelation that there still was enough left of SHIELD to put a helicarrier in the air, he'd gone on an aggressive campaign to convince the public that the only safe option was to dismantle SHIELD entirely, and that Nick Fury in particular couldn't be trusted with a paintball gun, let alone a cloaked airborne warship.

It had worked. All government property found to be in the hands of SHIELD had been confiscated, and any personnel with SHIELD affiliations who hadn't gone into hiding in time had been taken into custody. Fury had vanished, as he was wont to do, and Maria had retreated to her day job as a security consultant for SI. Since the Avengers were privately funded, they'd been safe from the immediate purge, but it had been clear to Pepper that a move like the Sokovia Accords was only a matter of time.

She'd guessed that there was a difficult transition ahead. She'd never imagined that the team would end up tearing itself in half.

They pulled up to a broad three-story building with the Avengers logo on the wall. Pepper recognized Tony's hand in the design: floor-to-ceiling windows and lots of open spaces. Even before Afghanistan, he'd never liked being closed in.

(Tony's designs. Tony's funds. Tony's hopes and good intentions, and also his obsessions, wrought in concrete and glass. It didn't surprise her that the entire place was stamped with him. Maybe that was why she'd never come here before — because sometimes she _hated_ … not _him_ , never him, but maybe, just a little, she hated the part of him that had poured itself so completely into this terrifying world of superheroes and gods and monsters.)

Rhodey met them at the door, and Pepper also recognized Tony's work in the braces that he wore on his legs.

"Hey, Pepper," he said, and smiled, and then she was in his arms and clutching him for all she was worth.

They'd spoken on the phone several times since Leipzig. She'd prepared herself for his injury. Seeing it in person was different, of course, and so was feeling the way he kept one hand on the door frame and leaned on her a little for balance… but he was still James Rhodes, and she didn't think she'd ever been more grateful for it than in that moment.

"Hey," she managed to reply.

They hung onto each other for a long, silent stretch, just like they'd done every other time that Tony'd managed to scare the life out of them.

Rhodey gave her arm a solid squeeze, then looked past her and nodded to Maria. "Hill."

"Rhodes."

"Come on in, please," he said. "It's good to see you both. How was the flight?"

"Actually," Pepper said, "some things have come up in the last few hours. Things you need to know. Is there someplace we can sit down and talk?"

Rhodey led them to a conference room just off the open-concept kitchen/living room area on the main floor of the complex. Pepper pulled up the record of all communications to date between herself and her anonymous correspondent, and handed over her tablet.

He read the whole thing in silence. Then he scrolled back up and read it again.

After the second reading and a long pause, Rhodey set the tablet down and sat back slowly in his chair. "I don't even know what to say to this. It's unbelievable."

"I wasn't sure if it was genuine at first," said Pepper, "but if it's a fake, why would they suddenly add Steve and everyone else to their story? We all know them. It would be much too easy to disprove."

Maria answered, "Because they know they have you hooked, and they're trying to see how far they can string you along?"

"It's possible, but I don't think so. Rhodey?"

He sighed. "I see what you're saying. This guy just might be for real, and frankly, that scares me a hell of a lot more than the alternative."

"Why?"

"Well, let's lay it out. If this story is true, then some party or parties unknown—" he began ticking points off on his fingers "— _one_ , found out about the portals in advance and decided that nah, they didn't need to let anyone know what was going on, they'd just field this one themselves; _two_ , solved the tracking problem that a government task force made up of the top scientists in the country still hasn't managed to crack; _three_ , sent their own rescue team through the portal, consisting of additional parties also unknown; _four_ , recently managed to join forces with all five of my fugitive ex-teammates; and _five_ , expects you and Jane Foster to convince the mayor of New York to authorize an evacuation based on their data by pretending that it's her data. Does that cover it? Did I miss anything?"

"Said evacuation would also clear the way for your five fugitive ex-teammates to add themselves to the rescue team," Maria said.

"Good point. Thank you. Can't leave that out. Pepper…" His brow furrowed as he studied her expression. "My god, you're actually considering this, aren't you?"

"What other choice do we have?"

"Turn them over to the task force!" he snapped. "Find out if they have any real information, and get it into the hands of the people whose _actual job_ it is to protect this country!"

Pepper shook her head. "He won't do it."

"I wasn't suggesting we give him a choice," Rhodey said. "Whoever this kid is — and he sounds like he's _twelve_ , by the way — he's as good as admitted that he and his friends let Denver happen. They let _Champaign_ happen. I don't care who you are or what you're protecting, you _don't_ get to make those calls for hundreds of civilians, and if you do, then you damned well show your face and take the consequences!"

They all fell silent for a time.

Pepper took a careful breath. "I'm as upset about Denver and Champaign as you are," she said, "but they _happened_. Our people are missing, and we need to bring them back. If the portals had appeared before Leipzig, wouldn't you have said that the Avengers were the best choice to lead a rescue mission?"

Rhodey looked at her, and there was cold hard anger around his eyes like she'd rarely seen. "Back when I didn't know some of the things I know? Sure. But Leipzig and Siberia happened, too."

"I think we're getting ahead of ourselves," Maria said. "This whole thing is meaningless if we're dealing with a hoax. We need to definitively confirm or deny the story before we take any kind of public action."

"I agree," said Pepper. "We know they're on their way to New York. I want to set up a meeting, face to face. Everyone involved shows up, or there's no deal. Rhodey, I assume—"

" _Hell_ yes, I'm coming with you, are you kidding?"

"Where do you want to meet?" Maria asked.

Pepper had been thinking about that quite a bit, in fact. "The top floors of Stark Tower are still sealed off," she said, and smiled faintly. "I'm sure Steve remembers the way."

Rhodey chuckled. "All right. Not bad."

"Assuming we move forward," Pepper continued, "the second condition, obviously, is that Jane verifies their data. _If_ she agrees with their analysis, and _if_ they can explain to everyone's satisfaction why they can't come forward themselves, then I'm prepared to at least consider acting on their proposal." She looked back and forth between them. "Under those circumstances, would I have your support?"

"If the alternative is that the portal hits New York and no one is warned at all," Maria said, "then I'll back your play. And I definitely want to meet this guy for myself."

"I'm with you on the meeting," said Rhodey, "but I don't plan on being easy to convince."

"Forgive the intrusion," said JARVIS's voice. "I couldn't help but overhear."

Pepper turned sharply in her chair, and found Vision standing just outside the door.

She'd met him only once, shortly after Sokovia. Tony's explanations had oscillated between the hopelessly vague and the hopelessly technical; she'd managed to gather that Vision had an artificially constructed body and a mind that was part JARVIS and part alien technology. There was not a single bit of that description that Pepper found reassuring.

Nevertheless, she smiled politely and said, "Hello, Vision. How nice to see you again."

He inclined his head. "Ms. Potts, Ms. Hill." Then, after a barely perceptible hesitation, "Col. Rhodes."

"What do you need?" Rhodey asked him.

"With your permission, I would like to accompany you to New York. I believe that my presence could prove useful on Captain Rogers' rescue mission."

Pepper knew, of course, that it had been Vision who'd fired the shot that had led to Rhodey's crash. ('Friendly fire', they called it. She had some issues with that turn of phrase.) It wasn't easy to interpret the affect of an artificial life form, but by human standards, Vision seemed to be deeply remorseful.

For his part, Rhodey appeared not to be holding a grudge, although Pepper could detect a trace of uncharacteristic stiffness in his voice. "Are you sure you want to get involved?" he asked. "The Avengers haven't been authorized to intervene in this situation."

"True," Vision said, still not quite meeting his eyes. "I have no direct instructions to undertake a rescue." He paused. "However, Captain Rogers and his team are fugitives, and there are standing orders for their arrest. If, for example, they were to attempt to escape through the portal, I believe I would be obligated to follow."

"What happens on the other side?" Maria asked. "It's not a rescue mission if one member of the team is trying to take the other five into custody."

"Once we reach the alien world," Vision replied, "the humanitarian effort to retrieve the abductees would of course take precedence over any other matters."

He could feel remorse and he could work a loophole. Pepper would have thought that she'd be reassured to find recognizably human traits in him, but somehow they only served to make him seem more alien.

Maria pressed her lips together. "Steve might not be too happy about this development."

"Gotta say, keeping Rogers happy isn't my top priority right now," Rhodey replied. "We have no idea what they could be facing over there. As far as I'm concerned, the more firepower they can bring, the better."

"All right, then what about the return trip? Do the six of you get into another knock-down, drag-out the minute you get back?"

Vision's head tilted slightly. "In light of the recent conflict and its consequences," he said carefully, "I find myself… uncertain as to the correct course of action. It is most unsettling. The one thing of which I am sure is that we must do all we can to rescue those people who have been taken through the portal. If Captain Rogers shares this goal, then I am prepared to agree to terms that will allow us to work together, including an amnesty that lasts through our return to Earth."

Maria caught Pepper's eye, and her chin dipped slightly.

Pepper desperately hoped that she was making the right call. Vision still left her deeply unsettled, but she couldn't deny that Rhodey had a point: they were running a rescue mission in an unknown environment, facing unknown opposition. Vision's presence would make the team that much stronger.

"In that case," she said with practiced boardroom confidence, "we'd be happy to have you along. I'll arrange the meeting with my contact."

"Actually," Rhodey said, "Pepper, can I have a word with you first?"

Maria stood up and said to Vision, in a tone that brooked no disagreement, "You know, I haven't been here in a while. Why don't you give me the tour?" She strode out the door, picking up Vision in her wake, and the two of them disappeared down the stairs.

"Did Tony talk to you at all?" Rhodey asked once they were alone. "About Siberia, I mean?"

"No," Pepper said, and had to quash a wave of guilt. "We, uh… haven't spoken in about a month, actually. Why?"

"Damn." Rhodey's jaw tightened. "All right. He'll be pissed as hell that I told you this, but… there's something you need to know about what happened between him and Steve."

 


	10. Chapter 10

Steve pulled up to the security door that led to the private underground parking garage at Stark Tower, and entered his code. The door rolled back and the lights switched on, which seemed like a good sign. He and Sam parked in adjacent spots, and the group disembarked. A couple of Tony's cars were still in the far row, and a black sedan that must have been Pepper's sat a few spots down from them, but otherwise the place was deserted. In the corner was the private elevator that would carry them to the upper levels that the Avengers had once called their home base.

"Did anyone else see that?" Clint asked.

Steve looked up quickly. "See what?"

"That giant neon sign, said 'trap'."

The responses to the news that Pepper was in New York and wanted a face-to-face meeting had been… mixed. Natasha had agreed with Steve that it was very unlikely that this was going to be some kind of ambush. Peter, who practically got cartoon hearts in his eyes whenever Pepper's name came up, was all in favor of the meeting, and Kiran was taking their cues from him. The other three, however, were considerably more cautious.

"Pepper wants the same things we do," Steve said. "She won't waste time setting a trap for us when we're her best chance for bringing Tony back."

Wanda was looking pensively at the ceiling. "Vision is up there," she said.

"Oh hey, and Vision's up there," said Clint. "That can't possibly go badly for us."

"If she picked up Vision, then she was at the compound," Natasha said. "Which means Rhodes is probably with her, too."

"Blinking red letters. T - R - A - P. Seriously, no one else is seeing this?"

Remorse gathered cold and heavy in Steve's stomach at the sound of Rhodey's name. He'd heard Sam go down just before the quinjet had taken him out of comms range, but he hadn't found out exactly what had happened until after Siberia. The news had left him stunned. Steve had never, _never_ intended for anyone to get seriously hurt. He'd never imagined…

Not that that was any excuse. It had happened, and they all had to deal with the consequences. Starting, apparently, today.

Sam's expression probably mirrored Steve's own: tightened jaw, guarded eyes. "Hanging around down here won't make this any easier," he said.

Steve looked around at the rest of his team. They were serious and on edge… but they were with him. "Let's go," he said.

The seven of them entered the elevator and began their ascent.

Only Peter seemed immune to the tension. "This is the greatest day of my entire _life_!" he gushed. "Well, with the exception of my wedding day which was magical _obviously_. But I never once in my wildest dreams imagined that I'd be _inside_ Avengers Tower! With the _Avengers_!"

Natasha said, "It's a shame you didn't bring your autograph book."

"I _know_!"

When the doors opened, they did not reveal a heavily armed tactical team — only Pepper and the allies she'd acquired. The four of them formed a line: Vision, Pepper, Rhodey, and Maria Hill. Rhodey was standing, thanks to braces on his legs that ran from ankle to waist. Tony's trademark circles of light adorned the knees. He looked… he looked all right. All things considered.

Steve took a cautious step into the room. The rest of his team began, as if by reflex, to fill in the opposing line beside him, and no, that was the wrong visual. The wrong message. He broke the formation and continued to approach until he was face to face with Pepper and Rhodey.

He drew a breath with no clear idea what he was going to say.

Rhodes beat him to it. "Don't say one word to me, you selfish son of a _bitch_."

There was nothing Steve could do but absorb the blow and lock it down. He nodded once in acknowledgment, then adjusted his gaze left and said formally, "Pepper. Thank you for meeting with us."

Just for a second, she let her mask of business-like detachment drop, and Steve read pure rage in her eyes. Then she blinked and it was gone, but Steve had gotten the message. She knew about Siberia.

"Don't thank me," she said. "I'm not doing it for you."

Steve just barely heard Clint mutter, "Yeah, this is gonna go great."

"Why don't we all sit down?" Maria suggested, and gestured to the conversation circle of chairs and couches that occupied the middle of the room.

"Good idea," said Sam, and led the way.

Steve retreated — that was the only word for it — and fell in with the rest of his team. The other four (he was trying very hard not to think of them as the opposition) waited until their guests were settled before taking their own places on the other side of the coffee table. Rhodes made his way slowly, with one hand on Pepper's shoulder for balance.

By silent agreement, Steve's people arranged themselves around Peter and Kiran, who were after all the crux of the matter. Maria and Vision continued to flank Pepper and Rhodes.

The last time they'd all gathered in this spot had been a year ago. As Tony's party in celebration of the recovery of Loki's scepter had wound down, the entire team had drifted up here, taking the rare opportunity to simply enjoy each other's company. Steve remembered the relaxed camaraderie and shared sense of accomplishment.

None of them had known that Ultron had been about to strike.

Steve wondered sometimes if Ultron had been some kind of warning sign. They'd lost Bruce in the aftermath, after all, and he and Tony had skirmished for the first time. Maybe… maybe if he'd done things differently in the intervening year, there would have been a way to hold the team together. Or maybe the fissures that had shown up a year ago had always been there, and the Avengers had been doomed to collapse from the start.

In either case… as team leader, the failure was his.

The physical damage from Ultron's attack had long since been repaired. The living area was pristine again. But the Tower no longer felt like home base, but enemy territory. The tension in the room was thick enough to choke on.

And then there was Peter. "Ms. Pepper Potts!" he chirped, grinning so widely it looked like the top of his head was going to fall off. "This is fantastic! I just wanted to say that I'm a huge fan — _huge_ fan — and I think the direction you've been taking Stark Industries is—"

Kiran swatted him on the arm. "Focus."

He nodded vigorously and didn't stop smiling. "Right. I'm completely focused."

Pepper said, "I understand you have a story to tell us."

The rest of the room subsided into attentive silence while Peter and Kiran went through the whole thing again.

Pepper sat very straight and very quiet through the entire recitation. When it was done — and Peter's contributions took some time to fully wind down — she said, "You're telling me that Tony has been enslaved on an alien world, not just for a day, but…"

Peter's gleeful mood had finally burned itself out. He checked his watch. "Almost eight months now. Yeah. My husband's been gone a year and a half," he offered. "If that… y'know."

That got her to smile, just a little.

"So, um. You believe us, then?"

Her gaze traveled across the assembled group. "I don't seem to have a choice about that," she said.

"What do you think about what we'd like you to do?"

Pepper looked at Rhodes, and Steve saw permission to open fire.

"This informant of yours, this alien," he said. "How long ago did she show up?"

"Her name is Kel," Kiran said, "and she came to Earth during the events in Greenwich."

"Which was almost three years ago," Rhodes said. "You've known that this was going to happen for almost three years."

"In fairness," said Kiran, "she spent the first few months learning English and acclimatizing to the culture. And, I think, deciding whether she could trust Jean with her information. Then SHIELD fell, which was somewhat distracting. Jean has probably known for about two years. She didn't bring me in on it until much later."

"Did it ever occur to you that if we'd had two years to work the problem instead of two days, we might have found a way to prevent it?"

"Jean decided that that was much too improbable to justify the risk."

"Oh, _Jean_ decided?" Rhodes threw his hands up. "Jean decided! Who the hell is Jean?"

"Who the hell were we when we took down Insight?" Sam said. "Sometimes the right person in the right place knows what needs to be done."

"Really, that's the example you're going with, Sam? Do you know how many people died that day?"

"Do you know how many people _would_ have died if—"

"This is off topic," Natasha said sharply.

"To prove what we were saying," Kiran said, "or not even to prove it, but just to get a hearing, Kel would have had to demonstrate that she was not human to all manner of people in the government and the military. This country doesn't have the greatest track record with human rights as they apply to humans, let alone an alien with highly weaponizable capabilities who essentially stranded herself here. Yes, Jean decided not to let Kel take the risk, and I certainly won't be doing it either."

"Watch yourself," Rhodes said sharply. "Those are my colleagues you're talking about."

Steve started to say, "Even if—"

"What part of 'Don't say a word to me' are you having trouble with?" Rhodes snapped. "No, wait, let me guess — it's the _don't_."

Steve redoubled his grip on his temper. "This situation isn't about _us_ ," he said.

"You sure about that, Rogers?" Rhodes said. "Because some of the consequences of an unsanctioned group taking matters into their own hands are sitting right here in front of you."

"I'm sorry," he said. "I never meant for—"

"I don't want your damned _pity_. If you'd taken two minutes to _explain_ —"

"If I had, would it have mattered? You had your orders to bring us in, and I couldn't let that happen."

"Exactly — _you_ decided, and that's why people got hurt!"

Then Peter blurted out, "Were they ever your friends?"

Everyone froze.

Rhodes said in a low, dangerous voice, "What did you just say to me?"

"No, I mean," and he waved both hands in a deflecting motion, "I have no idea what actually happened between the Avengers. There's some pretty wild rumors out there, probably not true, I wouldn't know, and obviously it cost you, personally, quite a bit, and please don't for a second think I'm making light of that because I'm totally not. Some things can't be made up for and I'm not suggesting otherwise. But before Germany and the Accords and all of it, I'm just wondering if they were ever your friends. Even a little."

To Steve's surprise, Rhodes actually appeared to consider the question. "I used to think so," he said quietly after a moment.

"Okay," said Peter. "Then does it mean something — or _would_ it have meant something, back then — that they were never getting out of that prison? I mean, when a guy like General Thaddeus Ross builds a place like the Raft, it's because he's planning to fill it. And there's a reason you put a prison on the bottom of the ocean, and it's not to give the parole board easy access. Right?"

"Whoa, whoa, how do you know about the Raft?" Rhodes asked. "That's classified."

Peter shrugged. "Oops?"

"No, that's not an 'oops', that's a _felony_."

"Felony oops? People like to tell me things. I was a Communications Studies major."

"You were not," Kiran muttered.

"I was _so_ ," Peter muttered back, "you're not the dean of me. And anyway," he continued to Rhodes, "even if _I_ know about it illegally, _you_ obviously don't, so: does it mean something to you that people who maybe were your friends once were gonna be locked away for life without anything resembling due process?"

"Of course it meant something to me," Rhodes said, "and those are exactly the sorts of extreme measures that the Accords were supposed to prevent!"

"For the Avengers, maybe, yeah," said Peter, "but not for everyone." He paused, and his usual frenetic energy came down a few notches. "I was never military," he said. "Obviously. I don't have that… I don't have _that_. But my brother and one of my sisters are. Navy — sorry. But I think I know enough about it to know that you protect the people in your unit. Right? That's the rule. And Jean has a rule, too — the same one, really. We don't tell each other's secrets. _Ever_." His focus widened to include Pepper. "Probably we all hope that it'll be safer someday. That turning out to be enhanced doesn't put someone's life in danger. But right now it isn't safe. It just… _isn't_. So whatever else we do, we don't tell each other's secrets."

Steve caught a glimpse of Natasha's expression. She usually looked at Peter like he was a puppy who had just chewed up someone else's shoes. But now he could see a glimmer of respect in her eyes.

"It used to be SHIELD," Kiran said quietly. "We all knew it: if you dared get caught being enhanced in public, you got _visits_. The modern era's more genteel alternative to imprisonment — surveillance. Your name on a list, your activities monitored, your friends and family investigated… just in case, right? I was determined to avoid that fate even before SHIELD turned out to be Hydra. Which they did. And now I shudder to imagine what's happened to some of the people who were on that list. I can't let it be me, or my family. I _can't_."

Rhodes drew a hand down his face and leaned back on the couch. "I'm not saying I agree with your call," he said. "And we are _definitely_ not done discussing the dissemination of classified information. But… all right, tell me how you do… whatever it is you're doing."

Kiran cupped their hands, and an orb of blue light gathered. It lifted into the air, expanding as it went until it was the size of a beach ball. Kiran's fingers twitched, and blue lines began to trace the continents, turning the sphere into a globe.

The four people who had never seen Kiran's magic before all stared in rapt attention.

"I inherited it through my mother's side," Kiran said. "There are one or two of us per generation — have been for centuries, or so the family legend goes. I can create certain things, and I'm aware of certain things. The portal is… a _wrongness_. An intrusion. If I focus a certain way, I can… perceive its intentions. In a sense. It's difficult to describe."

They shook their head as if to clear out the sensation. The globe sputtered in response, but Wanda sent a burst of her own magic into the air to shore it up. Red interlaced with blue.

Rhodes looked more than a little nonplussed at this display of power, although he covered it quickly. "And you've been collecting some kind of tracking data this whole time?"

"Yes."

The globe unfurled and magnified to show only the US. A bright dot appeared in Oregon, marking the first portal site. From the dot sprang a blue/red path that bounced to Colorado, then Illinois, then New York.

"I'm not sure how this will compare to Dr. Foster's readings," Kiran said, "but we've been keeping records and she can certainly review them."

Kiran glanced at Wanda, and a flick of the fingers from both of them caused the map to vanish.

"This seems like a good time to take a break," Pepper said. "Peter, could I speak with you in private?"

"Sure!"

Pepper stood up and headed toward the hallway that led to the briefing room. Peter started to follow, only to be pulled up short by Kiran's hand on his arm.

"If you think I'm letting you out of my sight—" Kiran whispered.

"No, it's okay," Peter said. "Seriously. I got this. Trust me." He gently freed himself, then hurried after Pepper.

Almost everyone stood up then, and there was a general flow of movement outward and away from each other.

Steve didn't want to give the appearance of either retreating to separate corners or encroaching on the other group's territory, so he split the difference and stepped off to the side. He leaned his arms on the guardrail and looked down into the rec room on the level below. Maria joined him not long after.

"I didn't expect to see you here," Steve said.

"Good," Maria answered. "I try to be unpredictable. Congratulations, by the way: your 'institutions of employment razed to the foundations' record is now two for two. Do you mind keeping your distance from Stark Industries? I kind of like my current job."

He sighed. "I didn't have a choice."

"No, somehow you never do," she said. "How is Barnes, anyway?"

"Safe."

"Hm." Maria discreetly angled her head to the left. "Incoming."

"I know."

Vision could move in perfect silence if he chose to. The footsteps were a courtesy, as was the fact that he stopped with a good fifteen feet of space still between them. Steve turned to face him.

"Captain Rogers."

The general level of alertness in the room went up sharply.

"Hello, Vision," Steve said. "What's on your mind?"

Vision hesitated, and looked around at his former teammates, all of whom — Steve knew, because he was doing it as well — were swiftly reviewing possible tactics in case this turned into a fight. It had been one thing to bank on Pepper or even Rhodes caring more about the rescue mission than the Sokovia Accords. Vision's priorities were tougher to gauge.

"Please," Vision said, and held out his hands placatingly. "My intentions are peaceful. I would like to join your mission to the other side of the portal."

"What, you figure we need a parole officer?" That was Clint, of course.

"I believe that I could be of assistance," Vision said simply. "You are proposing to spend three hundred days on an alien world, with minimal weaponry and uncertain information about the conditions. Surely you could use all possible reinforcements."

That wasn't a bad point. However, what they did _not_ need was backup that would transform into opposition the moment the mission ended.

"There could be serious consequences if you're seen helping us," Steve said. "Are you sure you want to put yourself in that position?"

Vision frowned pensively. "I spoke to you once of the greater good," he said. "That concept has turned out to be… difficult to quantify. But no good can possibly be served by allowing the kidnapped individuals to remain stranded. I will accept whatever consequences arise if we can bring them safely back to Earth."

"What about after that?"

"I disagree with your position on the Accords," Vision said, "and with your actions during the incident involving Sergeant Barnes." He paused, and his eyes flicked in Wanda's direction. "I also disagree, most vehemently, with Secretary Ross's response to these events. In light of this, it seems the only course of action open to me is no action at all. If you must flee upon our return, I will neither assist nor hinder."

That was far more of a concession than Steve had expected, although he still wasn't entirely convinced that it offset the risks. A quick survey of his team turned up a lot of cautious faces.

"We'll have to discuss it," he said. "But I appreciate the offer."

Vision nodded and withdrew.

An uncomfortable silence fell over the room, and lasted until Pepper and Peter reappeared several minutes later. They both looked somewhat subdued, but Steve had the impression that they'd come to an understanding.

"Jane will be arriving in about an hour," Pepper announced. "In the meantime, you've all traveled a long way. I had the kitchen stocked; feel free to rest and get something to eat."

Maria asked, "In other words, meeting adjourned?"

"I've heard everything I need to hear for the moment. Of course, the rest of you can continue talking if you like." Her smile was brittle and didn't come close to reaching her eyes. "I'll be in the penthouse. If you start another brawl, please try to keep the property damage to a minimum." Then she turned on her heel and departed.

Peter stopped by Rhodes and said, "I hope, um. That you get to meet everybody when they get back."

"I hope everybody makes it back," Rhodes said.

"Me too." Then he rubbed his hands together eagerly and said, "There was something about food, right? Is anyone else starving? I'm _starving_. Which way to the kitchen?"

 

* * *

 

The stretch of time between sunset and Jean's appearance had become Tony's absolute least favorite part of the entire escape project. Whatever enjoyment he might have gotten out of half an hour of unsupervised peace and quiet was negated by the fact that he was the only conscious person in a room full of people who had been drugged into unconsciousness. Calling it creepy seemed a bit juvenile, but… it was creepy. Plus the competing drugs in his own system left him so edgy he felt like he could crawl out of his own skin. The effects would wear off once he was up and moving, he knew, but for the time being, just having to lie there and take it was infuriating.

Finally, _finally_ , Jean appeared at the door. She was alone, which made Tony even more curious about what the hell was going on.

They took the usual route out of camp and into the forest, heading for a particular dip in the terrain that Tony had come to know quite well: they used it to mark the minimum safe distance required for conversations not to carry back to a passing Mino patrol. Waiting for them there were Kel and, to Tony's surprise, Aaron.

Jean turned to Tony and said, "Do you recall that I told you that I prefer to move slowly when it comes to sharing high-risk information?"

"Yeah, rings a bell."

"What I'm about to show you constitutes high-risk information."

In what Tony thought was a rather impressive demonstration of personal growth, he did not make a glib remark, but merely said, "Understood."

Instead of heading southwest toward the training ring, they circled north, circumnavigating the camp perimeter until they arrived at the entrance to the mine.

Okay, maybe he hadn't grown that much. "If you're about to tell me that we're mining vibranium, I hate to steal your thunder, but I already worked that one out for myself."

Jean shot him her usual unamused look, which Tony had long since taken to mean that she _was_ amused but didn't want to show it. "Wait here," she said, and beckoned to Aaron.

The two of them disappeared further into the forest, and returned a few minutes later with a lantern in each hand. Of course, this planet being what it was, a lantern was a plant: specifically, some kind of gourd. Each one was similar in shape to a pumpkin, small enough to be carried in one hand, and glowing a bright orange-red. Different bioluminescent process than the vines, obviously; Tony wondered what the catalyst was.

Jean and Aaron handed off their spares to Kel and Tony, and they all descended through the spirals of the tunnel into the mine.

The cavern had evolved considerably over the last eight months. The vibranium vein had bifurcated, with one segment leading further back underneath the hill and the other taking a downward angle into the rock. The work so far had focused on the piece that continued to run horizontally. Some crews mined the ore itself, while others extended and braced the tunnel.

They gathered in the center of the main cavern and set their lanterns on the floor. The reddish light allowed them to see each other, but barely extended to the cavern walls and left the exit tunnel and the stretch of new construction in total darkness.

Aaron, uncharacteristically, had a fierce scowl on his face. "I hate everything about this idea," he said to Jean, and added something emphatic in sign that Tony didn't quite catch.

"I know," said Jean. "With any luck, you won't need to be involved."

"I hope not."

Kel had been carrying a leather bag over her shoulder. She set it down and pulled out some kind of pod, about the size of her palm. In the red light, it looked black, which meant of course that it was green. It was oblong and basically flat, with a short wooden stem jutting out of one end.

This, apparently, was the focus of the night's excursion. They all clustered around, and Kel handed the pod over to Jean.

"What's in that?" Tony asked.

Jean said, "A nerve gas strong enough to kill a Mjentur."

Tony snatched his hand back. _Not_ poking it, then.

She'd managed to catch him by surprise, that was for damned sure. "You have a chemical weapon," he said.

"Yes."

He didn't… He'd never, and Stark Industries had never… but he'd met some of the people who did, and he knew — anyone who'd been in the business knew — exactly what those battlefields looked like. "I'm not excessively sympathetic to a group of slave drivers," he said carefully, "but as deaths go, that's an ugly one."

Jean didn't flinch, but Tony saw her take a second to shore up her self-control. "I'm aware," she said. "I plan to begin with an airborne anesthetic to incapacitate them, then evacuate the human personnel and trigger the toxin on our way out. Human exposure is kept to a minimum, and the killings have… at least some degree of mercy." Her shudder was almost, but not quite, imperceptible. "It comes down to this: I can bring the cave down on their heads, or I can knock them out and slit their throats, one by one, or I can suffocate them in their sleep. What I cannot do is leave them at our backs. If you find me another option, I'll consider it."

He gave a curt nod. Tactically, she was right: the only way the prisoners got away cleanly was if the entire Mino population was eliminated. He'd done roughly the same thing in a cave in Afghanistan, after all, only with bullets and explosives and a flamethrower. (And again, on a smaller scale, in Gulmira. And on a far greater scale with the Chitauri army. And again with the Extremis soldiers. Because Tony Stark was the Merchant of Death, wasn't he. No point in getting squeamish now.)

Jean returned her attention to Kel, who tapped the pod's stem.

"Break this," she said. "It begins the release of the poison."

Jean nodded. "All right, let's set them up."

She led them to one of the support beams that stood where the newest stretch of tunnel branched off from the main cavern. About halfway up, a section of wood lifted out, revealing a niche that had been hollowed out behind it, just large enough to accommodate the pod. When the wooden cover was replaced, only the stem was visible, and it appeared to be nothing more than a stray splinter.

Kel retrieved a second pod from her sack, and they repeated the procedure on a beam at the entrance to the cavern.

"This information is restricted to the four of us," Jean said when they were done. "It stays that way."

"Convenient that we wear the filter masks and they don't," Tony said. "That is, I assume, how you're planning to protect everyone from the knockout gas, and however much exposure 'a minimum' is?"

"Yes," she said. "In fact, the idea of the masks came from us in the first place. The health and safety argument is perfectly valid, as I'm sure you're aware, and at the same time, it opens up an avenue of attack." She gave a plastic smile. "Just one of many ways that Kel, as the local human expert, was able to improve the longevity and productivity of the workforce."

"And you've tested that they actually do block out the toxin, right? Because filtering particulates and filtering an airborne chemical agent are completely different problems."

Kel produced one of the masks from her bag of tricks. "The Nyth didn't design these for the camp," she said. "It was technology they had already created long ago, for a different buyer, for more difficult conditions. Easier to copy than to make something new." She squeezed a corner of the mask pensively, as if that could possibly provide her with the relevant data. "It should work."

Oh, for crying out _loud_. "The key word in there," Tony growled, "was 'should', which means that the answer to my actual question is _no_ , you haven't tested them."

Jean plucked the mask from Kel's hand. "That's what I'm here for, while Kel tests whether two distribution points yield adequate concentrations through the entire cavern. Masks on," she said, and followed her own advice. Kel began echoing her words in sign for Aaron's benefit. "There are two more in the bag. Tony, Aaron, this is just a precaution for you. I'll give you five minutes to get clear of the mine before we start."

Because _of course_ her notion of a test was to gas herself.

Aaron's displeasure had just taken on a whole new dimension. Tony turned to him and tried out his fledgling sign. "Does she risk herself a lot at home?"

Aaron's vigorous eyeroll required no translation.

Jean cleared her throat pointedly. "Masks, gentlemen, and then head to the surface. We'll know in several minutes whether the Nyth have come through for us."

"Actually, I have several points of concern," Tony said, in a tone of voice that he generally reserved for congressional committees. "Off the top of my head, and in no particular order, is Kel's test considered a success if she ends up dead?"

"Nerve poisons don't work on me," Kel said. "But I should know if there is enough to kill."

The self-repairing trick struck again. "Oh good, that sounds completely foolproof. Is Jean's test considered a failure if _she_ ends up dead?"

"That would be suboptimal," Jean said dryly, "but as it happens, I have two empathic healers on standby."

"And what— wait, _what_?" Two empathic healers was twice the number of empathic healers that he'd previously been aware of. By process of elimination…

"It started when I turned sixteen," Aaron said. "I don't know why."

Tony slowly turned to stare at him. "You're enhanced."

"Yes."

"But not because of alien DNA, like Kel?"

He shrugged. "I don't think so."

"Aaron is not a Brenith," Kel said. "His gift is very different. All j'Brenithi can repair ourselves. We train at this. But for us, _this_ —" she rubbed her fingers together "—is a weapon. It is used to damage, to kill. What I know about using my touch to heal others, I learned from Aaron." She bowed her head to him while tapping her fingers to her forehead in what was clearly a salute.

"This is also high-risk information," Jean said quietly. "Aaron agreed that you could know. Very few people do."

Tony nodded slowly as a low-level incongruity was finally put to rest. "So that's your role," he said to Aaron. "Because it never made sense for the team's biggest gun — no offense," he added to Jean.

"None taken."

"—to be the medic as well."

"That's correct," Jean said. "If this goes badly, Kel can keep me alive long enough to get me out, and Aaron can reverse whatever damage has occurred."

"One day, you're going to break something that I can't fix," Aaron told her.

"That may well be."

He picked a filter mask out of the bag, carefully sealed it around his mouth and nose, and strode back out the tunnel entrance toward the surface.

Jean took up her position next to the first of the hidden pods. "You too, Tony," she said. "There shouldn't be any significant diffusion through the entry tunnel or the ventilation shafts, but you'll want to put some distance between yourself and the mine even so."

No, actually, Tony was pretty sure he did _not_ want to do that. He grabbed his own mask, and followed in Aaron's footsteps until he reached the second pod, then turned and planted himself firmly in place.

Jean sighed. "Somewhat more distant than that," she said.

"Not a chance," he said. "You're on my turf now — I _invented_ reckless self-experimentation with previously untested tech. This mask of yours is supposed to work, right?"

"Yes," Kel said, earning a glare from Jean.

"Then let's test it."

She drew a breath to retort, then let it out again in another sigh and threw up one hand in resignation. "Fine. If you must."

Jean was one of those people who would cheerfully take risks herself that she would never allow anyone else to take for her. The fact that she'd stopped arguing with him after a token protest told Tony that she was actually quite certain that the filter masks were going to work — and that in itself was interesting, because he was pretty sure that she had nothing more than Kel's word to go on.

They all wore and discarded the masks every day; it had been months since he'd really looked at one. It consisted of an irregular web of thick green strands, with a thin translucent film stretched over top. The film looked vaguely similar to the stuff they used in the skylights here in place of glass, and to the canopy that was stretched over the town square when it rained. Whether it could filter an airborne nerve agent, he had no way to judge.

Tony smoothed the webbing down over his skin, taking a lot more care about it than he usually did. It sealed tight but left his breathing unimpaired, like normal.

"Is Aaron leaving, at least," Jean asked Kel, "or have I become completely ineffectual?"

Kel appeared to be looking up through the ceiling. "He's past the first turn," she said. "He will leave."

"So you get bearing and distance from your… whatever it is you've got?"

Kel looked at Jean quizzically, and she translated, "Relative direction."

"I see. Yes," she told Tony. "I can tell how far from me, and in what direction. Because of this, part of my job here is to make sure that the prisoners sleep at night and don't try to run. If someone is awake, I know. If someone leaves their building, I know." She grinned at him. "I do this part of my job very badly."

Which went a ways toward explaining the risibly inadequate night security. Another little puzzle off his list.

"What other innovations are the two of you responsible for?" he asked.

"The treatment of prisoners in general," Kel said. "Medical care, living conditions. Allowing some comfort, not forcing them to work until they die from it. j'Brenithi are conquerors, so we know: to keep a conquered population from fighting back, give them things to lose."

"From my side," Jean said, "I do my best to make these tactics appear successful. The more we cooperate, the more confident the Mjentur are that they are in control, and the more preparations we can slip through the cracks."

Kel's expression grew more somber. She looked from Tony to Jean and said quietly, "There is one thing I didn't—"

"It doesn't matter," Jean said, too sharply.

"No, that sounded like it mattered," Tony said. "One thing you didn't what?"

She didn't reply, but looked at Jean pointedly.

Jean's voice softened. "One habit we weren't able to break them of," she said, "was that of using the first nontrivial infraction as an excuse to make an example out of someone. I regret that deeply."

Tony turned his face away before he could stop himself, and glowered at the support beam. The… incident was months past. For the most part, it had become just another piece of the general background noise in his head. A slightly enlarged set of inputs to avoid (raising both hands above his head was not happening for the foreseeable future). New fragments of imagery for the nightmares that came and went. But _basically_ he was over it.

Didn't mean he wanted to _talk_ about it.

Tony cast about for a change of topic. "People don't always double-check the seals on these things," he said, keenly aware of every time he'd left the bottom edge of the mask open. "You might want to spread the word on that."

"Good point, thank you."

"Getting back to my points of concern," he said, now back on firmer ground, "since we're exhausting these batches, I assume you can make more?"

"Yes," said Kel. "The poison is created by _mershshket_ — small animals that live in the trees. There is a nest to the south. I can collect what I need. I have many of the containers."

"And how much of the toxin will still be hanging around tomorrow when shift starts?"

Kel answered, "It will fall to the ground before morning. I'll come back to clean with something that… there's a word. Makes it not act?"

"Neutralize," Tony offered.

"Neutral," she pronounced carefully. "Neutralize. Yes, this. We will also have to wash with it after. But the risk from a few minutes of skin contact should be very small."

"Again, not loving the word 'should'."

She shrugged. "It didn't damage me."

"If you don't care for the environment, feel free to relocate," Jean added.

Tony ignored that and settled in to wait.

"Aaron is where we agreed to meet," Kel announced after a few more minutes.

"Then let's get this over with," Jean said.

She and Tony both found the stems that protruded slightly from the wood of the support beams. At Jean's nod, they simultaneously snapped them off.

There was no overt response. In particular, Tony did not keel over dead. This seemed like a promising start.

They stood in silence in the dim light for a long stretch. Tony's confidence — having been derived from Jean's confidence in Kel's confidence — was not completely solid, and he remained on high alert for any ill effects. But nothing happened: no blurred vision or dizziness or other neurological symptoms, no shortness of breath, no muscle spasms. Experimental subjects one and two appeared to be perfectly healthy.

Experimental subject three also appeared to be perfectly healthy, although the significance of this was less clear.

"So… toxin levels?" Tony prompted her. "Any report?"

Kel sucked in a breath. "I can feel it, I think, but not strong enough to kill."

She began pacing slowly through the cavern, stopping now and then to measure toxicity by breathing deeply. When her route brought her alongside Tony, she stopped and announced, "Here, by now, they will die." She picked up his wrist and stared hard at his chest for a moment, then added, "He's fine."

More minutes passed as she completed her circuit. Jean's immediate environment was also pronounced lethal, while Jean herself was unharmed. Finally, Kel made it back to the center of the cave.

"It's heavy and slow," she said. "By the walls — yes. Here in the center, damage but not immediate death."

"You want a third point of release," said Jean.

"To be safe, yes. Especially as the cave becomes larger."

"So the concept is sound, but the distribution system needs work." Jean nodded once, decisively. "That's enough to go on for now."

"Ventilation shaft," Tony said, and pointed. "That one, specifically. Not that you've given me the most _precise_ data to work with, but if I'm inferring the diffusion rate correctly — and, let's face it, I am — a third release point in that section of the ceiling will fill in your gap."

"Difficult to activate it discreetly," Jean said.

"Not really. Just lengthen the trigger mechanism so that it can be set off from above ground." Tony paused, entirely for effect. "Unless of course you expect me to believe that you _don't_ have a back door out of here."

He'd had plenty of time to run through the scenario and uncover the problem: namely, the handful of Minos who stayed above ground to supervise the loading of raw ore into wagons for transport. They wouldn't be hit by Jean's little surprise down in the cavern, which meant that if the prisoners took the main tunnel to the surface, they'd run right into them. And yes, Jean had her combat units, but she'd made it clear all along that she was hoping not to need them. Plan A, at least, would not depend on a head-on confrontation; hence a second exit.

Jean's eyes were startled, then annoyed, then impressed. "Point taken," she admitted. "Kel, do you think you can extend the trigger?"

"Probably. I'll work on it."

"Good. Then on that note, I suggest we leave."

Back at ground level, Tony and Jean retreated behind separate trees to strip and scrub down with a liquid that smelled and stung like hydrogen peroxide. Jean had brought towels and changes of uniform for all, and Tony dressed as quickly as he could in the chilly night air. Kel, who would be going back into the cavern later, didn't clean up yet, and stayed a very cautious distance away from the rest of them.

After they'd been through decon, Aaron had Jean sit down on a low outcropping of rock so that he could look her over. He checked her pulse and studied her eyes in the light of a fresh lamp, then touched two fingers to her temple and closed his eyes in concentration, presumably to access whatever insight his particular power gave him.

Tony was still deciding exactly how he felt about this newest revelation. The relentless procession over the last few years of Bruce, Rogers, Thor, Killian and company, Wanda and her brother, Vision, T'Challa, and Peter Parker (and those were just the ones he knew personally) had more or less driven the word 'impossible' out of his vocabulary. So: Kel and Aaron both had healing powers of some persuasion. Fine. He was curious as to what Aaron's excuse was, but… fine.

The more compelling mystery was how Jean had come to be at the center of this expanding network of powerful individuals. She'd already admitted to having a magic user on staff. Kel, who was formidable in combat and had an impressive array of powers besides, jumped at her commands. Now she'd picked up an empath from somewhere.

( _For fuck's sake, just say it: they're a team. She has a team, and they function, all… team-like. The way the Avengers never quite collectively managed._ )

She caught him staring, and raised her eyebrows curiously.

"There's a bit more to you than just a 'person who seeks out information'," Tony said.

Jean shrugged. "Some of the information that I receive comes my way because people trust me to protect it."

Aaron pronounced her fit. "But don't put everyone through that level of exposure," he warned. "You did pick up some trace contamination through your skin. It's minute enough that you're not showing symptoms, but someone who's more susceptible might not be so lucky."

"Understood," she said.

She stood up, and Aaron turned to Tony.

"Do you mind?" he asked. "You're probably fine too, but I'd like to be sure."

Tony remembered vividly that first day in camp, when Aaron's had been the first friendly face he'd seen. It was throwing him a bit, the idea that the kid had powers… but he also recognized that having been let in on the secret was a significant gesture of trust. Maybe he had it in him to reply in kind.

"Yeah," he said. "Okay."

 

* * *

 

Tony decided to blame nerve gas exposure for the fact that it took him almost a full day to pick up on the _other_ secret that Jean had told him.

The camp shower facilities were housed in a long narrow building located near the mine. The prisoners were taken there each day after the end of shift. The first section of the building contained supply shelves with fresh clothes, towels, and soap and other toiletries. The rest of the space was subdivided into little cubicles, each curtained off, where people could wash and change in relative privacy.

Tony kept tight on Jean's heels while they both picked up their ablutionary supplies, and when she chose a shower stall, he ducked in after her.

She met him with crossed arms and an unimpressed expression. "I hope you don't think that was subtle," she said.

It was tough to be authoritative while speaking in a whisper, but Tony gave it his best shot. "A habit," he informed her, "occurs, by definition, more than once."

She granted his premise with a tilt of her head.

"You said you couldn't break them of the _habit_ of making an example out of someone."

Jean managed to hide her flinch almost perfectly, and that told Tony that he was right. If she'd left someone else on the hook, she would have been far more ashamed of it.

"It was you last time, wasn't it?" he said.

It took her a long moment to answer. "I could scarcely let it be anyone else," she finally said.

Tony's fists clenched. "It shouldn't have been anyone at _all_."

"That was not within my control. Kel warned me that they would brutalize the first person who gave them an excuse. So I gave them one." She slipped past him, and Tony wondered for a second if she was running, but she stopped once she was out from between him and the wall. "I'm not sure what your intentions are," she said, "but mine are to wash."

She reached for the hem of her shirt, and Tony about-faced so fast he nearly gave himself whiplash.

"What did you do?" he asked.

"Approximately what you did, for slightly different reasons, to essentially the same effect."

"Was it the whole five-day—"

"Yes."

"Did you know what—"

"Kel apprised me of the basic elements," she said tightly. "Not that a verbal description quite does it justice."

No, it didn't.

The space was tiny. Tony moved up so that his nose was essentially in the corner, and even then, Jean had only just enough space to maneuver without bumping into him. He stared at the grain of the wood and tried to figure out just what the hell he wanted to get from this meeting.

Because he was _furious_ , and furious in an omnidirectional sort of way that tended to go badly for him. The image of Jean strung up and bloody was— and knowing that she'd walked into it _willingly_ , to try and… to keep anyone else from—

He wanted to burn the fucking camp to the ground.

And he couldn't. All he could do was stare at the wall, breathe in the faint citrus smell of the soap, and listen while Jean scrubbed herself clean of another day's slave labor.

When he trusted himself to speak, Tony said quietly, "You could have said something sooner."

"It didn't seem altogether germaine," Jean replied. Fabric rustled as she dressed again.

"Okay, we're gonna work on your definition of the word 'germaine'."

She stepped up beside him, fully clothed. "It's fortunate that Kel was able to save all of your teeth," she said, and stretched out the side of her mouth for a second to show him a missing molar. "Other than that, there have been no lasting effects."

Then she gave a pointed nod to the change of clothes he still had bundled in his arms. Tony scowled and traded places with her. Mino supervision was relatively light for the moment, but they would come through in force in just a few more minutes to chase out the stragglers.

Jean faced the corner. Tony shucked his dirty clothes angrily, and began to wash angrily.

"The offer is still on the table, by the way."

He blinked. "What?"

"If you need to hit me."

Tony spun round to glare at her back. " _That's_ your— You think this is aimed at _you_?"

"Isn't it?" She stood ramrod straight, hands folded at the small of her back in standard parade rest formation. "I'd been warned that you were growing impatient. I'd hoped that sending Frank to speak with you would at least buy me another day to decide what to do. I badly misjudged your response. And now an argument could be made that I knew far better than you did what you were risking, and I let you risk it anyway. Physical retribution is all I have to offer."

Physical _fucking_ retrib—

Of course she— no one here knew about Siberia, the last time he'd gone in for physical retribution. He reflexively flinched away from those memories (heavy lockdown, _not_ dealing with it) but even the briefest of echoes of… And it sure as hell hadn't _helped_ , he knew that much, not that he'd been capable of thinking past the next punch or the next repulsor blast.

_Fuck_.

"For god's sake, turn around," Tony snapped once he'd yanked his shirt down over his head.

Jean did. She was wearing the philosophical expression of someone who had accepted the inevitability of shortly being punched in the face.

"I'm not angry at _you_ ," he said. One of her eyebrows arched, and Tony amended, "Maybe five percent angry at you." It stayed arched. "Okay, _eight_ percent, and _stop_ that. You want to know where the other ninety-two percent is going? I'm angry that more than one of us — no, make that more than _none_ of us has been strung up like a fucking pinata by these sick freaks. I'm angry that a hundred twenty people have been stolen from their homes, I'm angry that I've got a fucking slave brand on my face, and I'm _furious_ that there's not a damned thing I can do about any of it for another year!"

Her hand came up, just a little, in warning — _volume_ — and Tony sucked in a shaky breath. "I knew there'd be hell to pay," he said. "I guessed low on how _much_ , but… it was still my call. That's on me. And if I remember right, it wasn't you with the club, or the whip. So let's…" He tried to convey with aggressive hand-waving that the physical retribution topic was off the table.

Jean nodded slowly, and Tony risked a look into her eyes. If he'd found pity there… but he didn't. She was a tiny bit assessing, because that never fully shut off, but mostly he saw… understanding.

Footsteps from the aisle — human ones for the moment, but the Minos wouldn't be far behind. Tony reflexively stepped in closer until Jean's chin was pointed over his shoulder and he was staring past her earlobe (because she was _unreasonably_ tall), and they both dropped their voices even further.

"Are you all right?" Jean murmured.

People picked the damnedest times to ask him that. "Do I have a choice?"

"No," she admitted. "Neither of us do. Is there anything I can do?"

"No."

She nodded again, and that was probably his cue to back up and let them both leave.

"You weren't sure about me at first," he said instead. "Why?"

Her eyes flicked in his direction quickly. "Iron Man and Tony Stark — by which I mean the public figures — are each impressive in their respective spheres, but they're known for… may I say impulsiveness, rather than patience?"

_Impulsiveness_ was pretty transparent code for _recklessness_. _Irresponsibility_. Tony Stark's fucking legacy. "Yeah," Tony said bitterly. "And I'll bet they're _not_ known for taking orders, right? However many of me there are?"

Jean's jaw muscles worked. "Yes, that was also a factor," she admitted. "The people who came here with me did so because they believe in my ability to keep them safe. _Mine_. Their lives are my responsibility. Call it arrogance if you like, but I can't allow anyone else to take that responsibility from me."

Tony knew from arrogance and… probably a component, yeah, but it was arrogance backed up by planning and preparation and a loyal team. "You've got the camp dancing to your tune," he said. "I've got no issue with that. We're twelve months and counting, so let's just get it done."

Her hand alighted on his arm, just for a moment. "Thank you, Tony. Your help is a resource I never expected to have. If you see something I miss, I want to know."

"Count on it."

 


	11. Chapter 11

Somewhat to Natasha's surprise, once the initial conflict between Steve and Rhodes had exhausted itself, the rest of the afternoon progressed fairly smoothly. At the very least, the entire group managed to coexist on the same floor of the tower without starting any more fights. The food helped. Peter made an enthusiastic foray into the kitchen, joined by Sam and Maria. Snacks were procured. Sniping was postponed.

Of course, _smoothly_ wasn't the same as _comfortably_. Natasha didn't need extraordinary levels of insight to know that Rhodes would have preferred to join Pepper in getting away from the crowd, but he wasn't willing to leave Steve and the rest of them unsupervised. He remained on the couch, pointedly silent and radiating distrust.

It put something of a damper on everyone else's conversational efforts.

Natasha was certain now that Pepper and Rhodes both knew exactly what had happened in Siberia. Rhodes' anger could have been explained by the outcome of Leipzig, but Pepper was also furious at Steve, in a way that was far too personal to be based solely on the fight over the Accords. She _knew_.

The precise nature of the final conflict between Captain America and Iron Man had not been released to the general public. Ross had gone, amusingly enough, with Zemo's cover story. Officially, Zemo had framed Barnes for the attack on the UN in order to gain access to him, with the ultimate goal of activating a unit of five Winter Soldiers. Once his plot had been uncovered, T'Challa and Tony — the latter on Ross's orders, of course — had gone to Siberia to stop him. Steve and Barnes had been there as well, with the same objective, and had provided some (minor) assistance in putting down the kill squad and subduing Zemo, but then they'd resisted arrest again and ultimately escaped.

Unofficially, Zemo had been all too happy to describe his plan, which he viewed as an unqualified success, and Natasha still had sources. She knew that he had engineered the final confrontation in Siberia so that Tony would act as his weapon against Steve — a weapon primed by the stresses of the previous forty-eight hours and set off by the revelation that Howard and Maria Stark had been murdered by the Winter Soldier. If it had been any other provocation, or any other context, Natasha doubted that Tony would have been pushed into attempted murder… but when it came to _that_ particular sore spot, all bets were off. And, of course, any threat to Barnes was guaranteed to toss all of Steve's judgment out the window. Once they'd been set on their collision course, they wouldn't have been able to stop, either of them, until the other had been put down hard.

The true tragedy — and the aspect of the situation for which Natasha would have to face up to her own culpability sooner or later — was that the outcome had not been inevitable. She and Steve had both had the opportunity to disarm that particular weapon, and they'd each chosen not to do it.

Barely two years ago, the two of them had stood in a secret bunker beneath Camp Lehigh and watched as Zola — or whatever simulacrum of him had been stored on those computers — had unveiled the true extent of Hydra's manipulations. She remembered, clear as day, that smug, digitized voice over top of quick glimpses of newspaper headlines and blurry photographs… hinting but never stating outright. Bragging, but without specifics.

_When history did not cooperate… history was changed._

A newspaper article on Howard Stark's death had shown up in the montage, alongside a much more recent report on Nick Fury's assassination. Zola's implications had been clear, but it wasn't as if he'd offered them anything concrete. Later, the dump of SHIELD's servers had turned up no corroborating evidence, and Natasha had spent no small amount of time looking. In retrospect, this wasn't surprising: the SHIELD files had contained almost no information about the Winter Soldier or his missions. At the time, though, while Natasha had found it conceivable that the Starks' deaths had been engineered by Hydra, she'd doubted that Barnes had been involved. The assassination of one industrialist and his wife had seemed too prosaic for the Winter Soldier. Instead, the lack of documentation had raised the possibility that Zola had been lying. One final mind game.

In light of all of this, Natasha had weighed the consequences of speaking to Tony about it, and finally decided against it. There was no evidence to prove that Hydra had been behind his parents' deaths, but equally there was no way to prove that they _hadn't_ been. To reopen old wounds and offer nothing but uncertainty in return had struck her as unnecessarily cruel; she'd already seen Tony in one self-destructive spiral, and had no desire to spark another one.

She wondered what Steve's reasoning had been. Or if he'd thought it through at all.

It had been a terrible misjudgment on both of their parts, and the damage was going to take very delicate handling to repair, if it could be repaired at all. Stranding all of them for ten months in a labor camp on an alien world was… _not_ the approach Natasha would have chosen. That was, of course, the _other_ reason she'd insisted on joining Steve on the inside. She'd failed once at holding her team together. Not again.

On a purely practical level, the mission itself wasn't worrying her terribly. She'd broken her way into and/or out of secured facilities enough times to be confident that every security system had its weaknesses. The ten-month timeline was an irritant, but long-term deep cover was not, in and of itself, a serious problem for her. No, the only difficulties she could foresee would come from the human element.

Speaking of which, once they were on the other side, they would also have to work with Jean and her team — and if there was one thing that Natasha had learned in the last few hours, it was that affiliates of Jean's were not to be underestimated.

Kiran's capabilities had already been well established. Peter was, in his own way, turning out to be equally formidable. His earnestness was absolutely sincere — that was the power of it — but it was honed and directed to a far greater degree than Natasha suspected most people gave him credit for. He'd identified the one angle that could have possibly gotten Rhodes onboard with Jean's plan. Whatever he'd said to Pepper in private had clearly dispelled the last of her doubts as well.

(Annoyingly, Natasha didn't have a solid conjecture as to what that private conversation had been about — only that it had affected Pepper on a personal level. Possibly something concerning Tony, since after all Peter and Kiran had spoken to him shortly before he'd been taken.)

Pepper reappeared when Jane arrived at the tower, which was about an hour later than predicted because she'd detoured to take readings of the portal's signature. Once Jane was added to the mix, Peter got the chance to show off again: he sat between Jane and Kiran and maintained a running two-way physics-magic translation between the two of them while they rattled off lengthy strings of non-overlapping jargon at each other. Natasha wasn't following either side perfectly, but she did learn that Peter had studied Jane's work and incorporated aspects of it into his tracking program.

Jane, who was always happy to meet enthusiasm with more enthusiasm, started chatting about her own tracking device, a flat black box with lights and dials and antennae whose functions were not apparent to anyone but her. If Pepper hadn't pulled them back on topic, the two of them probably would have started roughing out upgrades to their respective tech right there on the coffee table.

Eventually, Jane managed to retune her dialogue to the level of a general audience. The upshot was that, in her opinion, Kiran and Peter's data was valid. In fact, her only qualm about the entire proposition was the part where she was supposed to take public credit for their work.

"It's really okay," Peter said. "We don't mind. The entire point is so that we stay invisible."

"But it's the principle of the thing," Jane said. "You solved the problem first. Besides, I've been in airports and airplanes for the last thirty hours. I couldn't have gotten your first two days' worth of data."

"You got a research assistant to do it," Peter suggested. "Or, really, you only need to show the last few hours, right? That establishes the extrapolation well enough."

Jane cringed. "That's just… so _inelegant_."

Natasha checked her watch. Three hours to go. "Sometimes elegance has to make way for practicality," she said. "Realistically, no one else in the room is going to understand the math. Just put up a chart in nice colors and explain the conclusion. You _do_ agree on the next projected site, don't you?"

"Oh sure," Jane said. "I mean, within error bars. My sixty-percent CI is—"

"Something that you can draw on a map?" Natasha suggested.

She sighed. "Yeah, I suppose so."

Awkward silence, never far away, descended again. Jane looked around the room like she was just now noticing the tension, which was probably accurate.

"So… how many of you are planning to go through?" she asked.

The relevant six of them, including Vision, raised their hands.

"Oh," Jane said, taking stock of the proposed team. "Um… good. Assuming the environment on the other side is capable of supporting human life, which I guess is… not impossible."

"We're pretty sure about that part, actually," Peter said. "A friend of ours knows people who've been there and back. Not _humans_ , as such, but like, oxygen breathers at least. So."

"Good," Jane said again, dubiously. "And the part where it feels like you're all on the verge of killing each other? Is, um… is that going to be a problem?"

"Still to be determined," Rhodes said grimly.

"Uh-huh." Jane looked around again, and came to a tactical decision. "Well, I'm just going to take my things and go… work on the map. Downstairs." She gathered up her laptop and other gear and beat a hasty retreat.

Sam, at least, was trying to stay on topic and not start another argument. "Anyone know where the task force is now?" he asked.

"Syracuse," Maria answered. "They're keeping a low profile this time — no full-scale evacuation. From what I'm hearing, they've finally twigged to the idea of a ground-based tracking team, and they're trying to pick up the signature."

"They're way too far north, though," Peter said. "This close to the next appearance, they're not going to find anything at that distance."

"Unfortunately, however, they're close enough that as soon as they find out about the New York target zone, they could get a response team here by helicopter within ninety minutes. Probably less." She looked at Steve pointedly. "Do you have a plan for that, other than punching your way through them?"

Kiran's fingers twitched, just a little. Peter noticed, and discreetly gestured for silence. Natasha suddenly had a feeling that any air support would find itself getting lost en route.

"Do you think they'll try to send a team of their own through the portal?" Steve asked.

"Considering how little they've accomplished so far? They will absolutely make a show of force if the opportunity presents itself."

Pepper said, "Then I'll just have to find a way to convince whomever I speak to that the location should be kept confidential for as long as possible."

Rhodes, who was still on a hair trigger, protested, "Wait, now we're deliberately sitting on this so that the task force misses the window? Since when was that part of the plan?"

"That was always part of the plan," Natasha said. "We're the only ones who are prepared for what's over there."

"Remind me why that's true again? Oh right — because the people with relevant information aren't talking. No, don't start," he added when Kiran drew breath to argue. "I've heard it already. Doesn't mean I have to like it."

"It would help your argument if Jane happened to know about the time dilation, and some of the more dangerous environmental factors," Natasha suggested.

"Ooh, that's a good idea," Peter said quickly. "We could work some of that stuff into the data, don't you think?"

Kiran, who hadn't caught the cue yet, said, "I'm not sure how tracking data helps explain what the other side is like."

"It's because the _model_ the tracking program is _based on_ has properties of both sides _in it_ ," Peter said, complete with overemphatic gestures.

"I suppose…"

"Obviously time is getting pretty short now," Peter continued to Pepper. "Maybe Kiran and I can help you and Dr. Foster finalize exactly what you're going to say?"

Pepper's head tilted slightly — she'd obviously picked up on the sudden urgency behind Peter's suggestion — but she allowed the two of them to accompany her downstairs to coordinate with Jane.

Peter caught Natasha's eye as he passed and gave a quick nod of thanks. Pepper, alone, could possibly be lobbied on the notion that Kiran was going to divert a government helicopter. Getting the idea past Rhodes would have been considerably more difficult.

"Here's an observation," Maria said. "None of you have any gear."

Steve looked down sheepishly. "No. In all the rush just to get here, we haven't had the chance to think about supplies."

"I figured as much. That's why I had a few things brought in from the compound." She jerked her head. "Conference room. Have a look."

In fact, it turned out that Maria had practically brought the compound's entire inventory with her. Some of it turned out to be useless, given what the other side purportedly did to electronics, but most of it was welcome: outerwear for a range of climates, survival kits including MREs and water rations, a pleasing assortment of knives, a few of Clint's bows along with arrows of all flavors, stun and frag grenades, and lots of guns.

Steve agreed that the explosives could be useful as diversions, but he tried to veto the guns. Natasha pointed out that a gun that was deadly to the user was still a viable weapon, as long as the enemy was the one who fired it.

It was agreed that Clint and Sam would carry the bulk of the munitions. Natasha and Steve would take only enough weapons to make their attack look realistic, since whatever they had on them when they were captured would presumably be lost. Wanda and Vision, who didn't much go in for weaponry, handled the extra survival gear.

The concrete practicality of mission planning helped to tamp down the remaining qualms about Vision's inclusion. He was unquestionably an asset in the field, and Natasha had no reason to doubt his promise of neutrality upon their return. She wasn't thrilled with the way that he and Wanda were studiously not looking at each other, but at least it seemed to be mutual regret rather than active hostility.

Speaking of Wanda, Steve drifted over to her, completely failing to look casual, and started to say, "You know—"

"Don't bother," she said. "I'm still going. If the other team is wrong about being able to track the portal from their side, then I'm your only hope of getting home again." She hefted her pack onto her shoulders and smiled humorlessly. "Believe me, I've lived through worse things than this."

"Relax, Cap," Clint added. "We'll look out for each other. All you have to worry about is how to steal a hundred twenty people back from a bunch of alien slave dealers."

Of course, not long after that, Clint drifted over to Natasha, also completely failing to look casual, and said quietly, "It's not too late for you to join my team. For once."

Natasha selected another tactical knife in a thigh holster from Maria's inventory — only one more blade, she didn't want to go overboard — and leaned over to fasten the buckles. "I'm going where I'm needed. You know that." When the holster was secure, she straightened up and reached for her jacket. "But we're still friends, right?"

He grinned. "I don't know — you hit me pretty hard."

"Wanda hit _me_ pretty hard. I think we're even."

Clint conceded that point with a slight tilt of his head. "Seriously though — last time, okay, it was a toss-up, but this time you gotta admit my team's better."

Natasha played along and pretended to think it over. "Your team has to carry a lot more gear."

"Yeah, but we'll spend way less time in a prison camp."

"You'll have to do more scavenging for supplies."

"Less throwing a fight to whatever goons they've got guarding the place."

"A lot more waiting."

"A lot less branding."

Clint was adorable when he worried.

Natasha zipped up her jacket and ran through a brief mental checklist of her weaponry. It was a pity she had to leave her stingers behind, but they obviously fell into the 'explode on arrival' category. Knives and batons would have to do.

"Do you really think I'm going to let Steve run around unsupervised on an alien planet for ten months?" she said to Clint. "I let him out of my sight for twenty-four hours last time, and look what happened."

From across the room, Steve looked up from the extra rations he was packing and shot her a sour look. "I can hear you, you know."

"I know."

When they were all suited up and fully provisioned, they rejoined the rest of the group, now congregated downstairs in the rec room. Pepper, Jane and Kiran were pouring over notes and schematics that they'd spread out across the pool table. Peter was chatting with Maria and Rhodes, although he quickly shifted focus when the Avengers appeared.

"Wow," he said, wide-eyed. "You guys look _cool_. You look _ready_. I keep telling Jean she's gotta work on her image more, 'cuz it totally makes a difference."

Maria asked, " _Are_ you ready?"

It was one of those moments of synchronous silence. The background conversations ceased, and the attention of the entire room focused on Steve.

He looked back at his people, catching each of their eyes in turn, then gave a firm nod. "We're ready."

Pepper approached the group of them, looking considerably less impressed. Steve stood up straighter under her scrutiny, a soldier at inspection.

"This won't make up for what you did," she said. "In fact, I don't think _anything_ can make up for what you did, and I have serious doubts about sending you after him now."

Steve was deep into his standard tactic of pretending that no part of him existed outside of the mission at hand. A tiny twitch of the lip was his only overt reaction. "Pepper, I—"

"No," she said flatly. "I don't care. Just know that if you leave him behind again, you'll be answering to me, and I'll make you _wish_ that Ross had buried you beneath the ocean." She was right up in his face now, toe to toe, eyes blazing. "So prove me wrong."

Steve nodded curtly. "Yes, ma'am."

"I'll call City Hall," she said.

 

* * *

 

Jane and Kiran's prediction, in its final form, was a region eight hundred meters by three hundred meters in Astoria, consisting predominantly of rowhouses and small commercial buildings. Geographically, it was a bad break: on a Friday evening, the population density was high, but there was nowhere to, as Peter had put it, send people up. The entire region simply had to be cleared.

Even so, Natasha had only minor worries about the logistics, and they were quickly assuaged. Between Pepper's polished diplomacy and Jane's scientific authority, the various New York government officials in their path never really stood a chance. Pepper secured a meeting at City Hall with relative ease, and the NYPD began quietly staging not half an hour later. With ninety minutes to go before the portal arrived, the target zone was released to the media and the evacuation began.

Jane had the perfect excuse for remaining in the target zone: she wanted to take close-up readings of the portal in order to refine her tracking model. Pepper had procured a cargo van for her from the local Stark Industries motor pool, and the rescue team was concealed in the back.

When it was pointed out that dropping them off at the portal looked a bit like aiding and abetting a group of fugitives, Jane said, "So a bunch of Avengers jump into my van. What am I supposed to do about it? _I_ can't throw you out."

"I'm not so sure about that," Clint said. "Didn't you run Thor down with one of these things, the first time you met?"

"I tapped him!" Jane protested. "I _lightly_ grazed him! And I've asked him to stop telling that story!"

"Just saying. You've got a weapon here, and we know you know how to use it."

Jane groaned. " _Fine_. I was so busy trying to collect the data that I need to keep tracking the portal that I didn't have time to hit all six of you—"

"Graze," Clint said.

"— _graze_ all six of you with my van. Is that a better story?"

"Yeah, that might work."

It was only a joke on the surface. Ross was going to take the Avengers' involvement personally, and the fallout would land squarely on Pepper, Jane and Rhodes. There was one modest countermeasure that Natasha had been able to set into motion, but otherwise, she simply had to hope that the three of them would be able to weather the next twenty-four hours, and that a successful mission outcome would mitigate the worst of the damage.

On the subject of mission outcomes, Steve, Sam and Natasha took a moment before they left to ask Peter about his team's plans for their return to Earth.

"Okay. Right. Good question." Peter nodded vigorously. "Everyone knew going in that the return trip would be incredibly public, and Jean and Kel particularly were _not_ going to put themselves out there on that scale. That's right off the table. So — yeah, we have a plan. Or like, there's the _plan_ , which is probably okay, and then there's the _backup_ plan, which _sucks_ , I can't even tell you how much I hate the backup plan, and then there's the _second_ backup plan, which, if things have broken down to where we need the second backup plan, then…" He threw his arms wide to indicate the scale of the disaster.

"What _is_ the plan?" Sam asked. "The first plan?"

"Um. I can't actually tell you? Any of them?"

"Yeah, that doesn't help us much."

"I know." Peter's expression was rueful. "Talk to Jean, okay? She'll know what you should do. But… one way or the other, if you don't want people to see you coming back, we can make that happen. That's all I can say."

As responses went, that wasn't remotely satisfying, but in the end, of course, it didn't matter. Backing down wasn't an option; they all had too much to prove — to each other, to the abductees, and to the world that was watching.

Now the six of them were waiting in the back of the van, side by side and silent, as the clock ticked down. The portal would be open for about half a minute, and it moved fast. If they all wanted to catch it, they had to be right in its path. Jane was constantly updating her projection based on whatever readings she was getting. With any good luck, she could drop them in position and get back out of the way in plenty of time.

The van was parked beneath the bridge at 30th Avenue Station. The trains had been stopped, and there were roadblocks in place at every cross street. Natasha could hear the honking of cars in their rage at having been diverted. There would be a crowd of rubberneckers, she knew, all of them with their cell phones poised to video the portal. But here, they were out of everyone's line of sight. The streets were deserted.

Well… almost deserted.

"I'm going to stretch my legs," Natasha announced, and opened the back door of the van.

Sam protested, "Right now? We've only got ten minutes."

"Won't take long."

She strolled across the empty road and stopped alongside one of the pillars of the bridge. "For future reference," she said, "red and blue aren't the best choices for urban camoflage."

There was a long, self-conscious pause. Then…

"How long have you known I was here?" Spider-Man asked.

"You've been watching us ever since we arrived," she said. "I assume you came to make sure that the evacuation didn't miss anyone. Did it?"

"No, the buildings are empty," he said.

"Good. Now tell me that's not a backpack you have with you."

"That's not a backpack I have with me," he said quickly.

If Tony had, perchance, explained his plan rather than just smiling enigmatically, Natasha hoped that she would have been able to talk him out of recruiting a very powerful, very untested teenager to what had already been a volatile situation. Then again, for all that he'd been trying to put up a front, Tony'd been running on sheer screaming desperation at that point, and maybe nothing she'd said would have made a difference.

At any rate, the boy had developed both a strong personal attachment to Tony and a wildly overinflated sense of his battlefield experience, as demonstrated by the fact that he'd shown up with what was obviously an overnight bag.

Steve, of course, hadn't been able to keep his curiosity in check, and climbed out of the van after her. "Who are you talking to?" he asked.

Natasha rolled her eyes heavenward, or at least girder-ward, where Spider-Man was hiding (after a fashion) in the shadows amongst the underpinnings of the bridge.

Steve followed her gaze, and sighed. "Queens, huh?"

"You're in my neighborhood, what can I say?" The kid hopped down to street level, landing easily between them. "I had to make sure you weren't here to stir up any more trouble."

Steve cracked a grin like he always did when he ran into gumption. "I'm surprised you're not trying to arrest us again."

"Well, there's bigger things going on right now. You're going after him, right? Or— _them_ , after them?"

"That's right," said Steve.

"And you're not," Natasha added.

Spider-Man crossed his arms. "How come?"

"For one thing, it's not a twenty-four-hour trip," Steve said. "Time moves differently on the other side. Once we get there, it'll be ten months before we can get home."

Which was true and at the same time missed the point by an astonishing margin. "For another," Natasha added sharply, "this is not another small intramural spat. The enemy won't just be trying to stop us, they'll be trying to kill us."

Spider-Man jerked his chin in Steve's direction. "He threw a fuel truck at War Machine, and he dropped a jet bridge on my head. What do you call that?"

"Astonishingly bad judgment," Natasha retorted. "Believe me, it was going around that day. That doesn't change the fact that Leipzig does _not_ make you prepared for this kind of mission."

He crossed his arms defiantly. "You think just because I'm maybe a little younger than you, I don't know anything about life-or-death consequences?"

Natasha could clearly read a loss there, which wasn't terribly surprising. "Look at it this way," she said. "Tony would never forgive himself for being the reason that you got yourself killed—"

"I'm not going to—"

"—or that you turned into a killer."

That, finally, pulled him up short.

"Do you understand?" Natasha pressed. "You're no soldier. If you became one because of Tony, what do you think that would do to him?"

"You did your job," Steve added. "Your neighborhood is safe. Now let the rest of us do ours."

Natasha wished that she could see the boy's face. His body language and the eyes of his suit were expressive enough, but facial expressions carried more nuance. He seemed more subdued, certainly, but there was still a hint of determination about him that concerned her.

Jane rolled down her window and waved to get their attention. "It looks like the portal's going to open at the other end of the street and cut across mostly north to south," she said. "If you want to be in its path, then we should get over there." Her attention shifted to Spider-Man. "Is he with you?"

"That's not how I'd put it," said Sam, who had been watching through the open doors of the van. "Kid, don't you even think about going through that portal. Stay right the hell away from it."

Spider-Man put up his hands in a show of capitulation. "Okay. I… I get it. Just…"

"We'll bring him back," Natasha said. "This will all be over tomorrow."

That was a lie. Tomorrow the repercussions would just be starting. But the boy seemed to buy it. He stayed standing in place until Natasha and Steve were back in the van.

They drove for less than a minute, but that minute took them out from the modest cover of the bridge and put them right out in the open. There were press helicopters buzzing overhead, staying outside of the evacuation zone by only meters. The barricades at the ends of the closest cross street were visible, as were the cops stationed there and the crowds of onlookers behind them.

And this was nothing compared to what the return trip was going to look like. _The plan, the backup plan, and the second backup plan_. Hopefully Jean would have something more concrete to contribute.

Steve looked at his watch one last time, then took it off. "Final check, everyone. No watches, comms, phones, or anything else with a battery."

It was an unnecessary instruction: they'd made a thorough check of their gear before leaving the tower, and Peter had volunteered to hold their phones while they were gone. Sam and Clint also left their watches on the floor of the van, and then they were ready.

The day had been sunny, but over the last few minutes, an imposing bank of clouds had come rolling in. Outside the van, the air felt heavy, appropriate to the moments before a thunderstorm broke. As the Avengers stepped into the street, Natasha heard shouts of recognition from the watching crowds. The camera choppers banked and swooped, jockeying for the best angles.

"It's barely a minute away now," Jane said. "Good luck."

"Thank you," Steve answered. "Now get to a safe distance."

Jane didn't need telling twice. She rolled up her window and drove back the way she'd come. The team faced north, and waited.

First, there was an empty street. Then it twisted and distorted, and with a deafening clap of thunder, it tore open. Blackness appeared, ringed by dancing blue lightning. Bolts shot out instantly, catching streetlights and traffic lights. Electricity crackled and glass shattered.

Natasha didn't startle. The light show was of no concern. The heart of the thing was the blackness, and what lay beyond it. The portal stretched fifty feet into the air, dwarfing all of them. It was power on a scale she couldn't comprehend — the power to punch a hole in reality itself.

And they were going to beat it. She'd faced down immense power before — power next to which a single human became insignificant — and every time, _every time_ , she and the people standing next to her had found a way to overcome it. Loki had been sent back in chains. Hydra had been defeated and stamped out. Ultron had been destroyed. And now they were going to bring their people home. She believed in that.

The portal began its sweep. Jane's prediction had been dead on: they were standing right in its path. By silent agreement, they all started forward to meet it.

The aperture loomed. Steve vanished first, snatched from the Earth in the blink of an eye. Natasha was just seconds behind him. Amidst the snapping of electricity and the smell of ozone, she stepped forward…

…and through.

 


	12. Chapter 12

Initial assessment: immediate vicinity clear of hostiles.

Secondary assessment: breathable air, forested terrain, clear weather, ambient temperature around 14°C.

Tertiary assessment: Steve was gone, and the portal was gone.

Natasha straightened up from her crouch and paced a slow three-sixty. A fifty-foot tear in the fabric of spacetime was not easily overlooked, and there was nothing of the sort to be found. A six-foot-two supersoldier likewise tended to stand out from the background. Hers was nowhere in sight, nor were there any tracks.

Interesting.

She abruptly realized that they'd miscalculated on one crucial matter: the time dilation. She'd been scant seconds behind Steve on Earth, but on this side the difference was scaled up by a factor of three hundred. No wonder he wasn't standing around waiting for her.

If their intel was accurate, the landing zone was surrounded by enemy forces, which meant that Steve couldn't have gotten too far. He'd been in front of her when they'd gone through. It stood to reason that he was in front of her now. Natasha completed her circuit and set out in the direction she'd been facing when she'd landed.

It had been evening on Earth, but here it was midday. Even through the shade of the forest canopy, Natasha could see that the sun was almost directly overhead in a nearly cloudless sky. The air was fresh — startlingly so in contrast with the urban environment she'd just left — and carried a hint of sweetness, suggesting flowers in bloom nearby.

The forest was nearly silent, which surprised her. On Earth, there would have been insect activity and bird cries at the very least. Here, the only sound was the rustling of a gentle breeze through the canopy.

She spotted at least ten distinct species of trees in her immediate vicinity, both conifer and broadleaf, all jockeying for their patch of the sky. One was beginning to bear fruit, while another had flowers still in the early budding stage. Some of the trees bore a superficial resemblance to Earth species like oak and spruce, but the likeness fell apart upon closer observation. The bark was the wrong texture; the leaves were the wrong shapes and shades.

A thick moss in a rather startling shade of blue could be found on the base of every tree trunk within sight. It was beneath her feet as well, making the terrain uneven and a bit more slick than dirt or grass would have been. Those patches of ground that the moss hadn't taken over were occupied by various low-lying plants and the occasional protruding tree root.

After less than a minute of walking, Natasha rounded a broad tree trunk and nearly tripped over Steve. He was sitting on the ground, leaning back against the tree.

"Hey," he said placidly.

Oh, this could _not_ be good. "Hey," Natasha replied, and took a casual look over her shoulder. There were no concealed hostiles in the area from what she could tell, but that didn't guarantee that they were alone.

"You've been gone for twenty minutes," Steve added.

"I know. The time change. We should have been more careful." If this had been an ambush, he would have given her a signal by now, but she was reading nothing from him. "Have you scouted the area?"

"I started to," Steve said. His attention drifted away from her. "I didn't… uh. I walked a bit. There's nothing but trees for… there's nothing. So I sat down."

Natasha crouched in front of him and tipped his chin back. Eyes unfocused, pupils dilated. He'd been drugged. It had to be potent, too, if it was chewing through his superhuman tolerance.

"Steve, look at me," she said firmly. "Did something sting you?"

He tried, he really did, but his eyelids started to droop almost immediately. "Don't think so."

_Damn_. In an alien environment, it could have been anything. There was no telling if their complement of antitoxins would do any good, and at any rate, the medical supplies were all with Vision and he might not arrive for another hour.

Steve's face and neck were unmarked. She picked up his hands next, looking for punctures. "Tell me everything that's happened since you got here," she ordered. "Steve?"

Too late. His breathing slowed, and his head lolled to the side, cushioned by the…

The moss. Natasha drew her finger through a patch by her feet. A fresh burst of sweetness arose in response, and her finger came away tacky.

Also, she found herself sitting down with no clear memory of having done so.

No, that wasn't… _up_ , she had to get up, she had to…

"Well," she said as her elbow landed on the ground, "I think I found our first problem."

 

* * *

 

Sam woke up in a tree.

He jerked reflexively as leaves brushed his face. His balanced tipped — his arms went out—

Vision's hand landed on his chest, steadying him until the rest of the cobwebs cleared. Tree — check. Broad bluish-green leaves providing cover, and a long-ass drop to the ground. He was sitting with his back to the trunk, straddling a thick branch about forty feet in the air. The perch was secure enough for someone who was paying attention, and he quickly recovered his balance.

Vision was… hovering in the air beside him. Like he did.

Sam nodded his thanks. Vision nodded back, then touched his finger to his lips. He rose through the air, smoothly maneuvering around more branches until he reached Wanda, who was positioned in a similar manner about ten feet higher. She was still asleep. On the other side of the trunk, Sam located Clint, who was awake and climbing upward and outward along another branch. No sign of Steve or Nat.

Considering that the last thing Sam remembered was falling asleep in enemy territory, he was a little surprised to have woken up at all. He'd landed in a forest, just like Peter and Kiran had described. There had come the electric shock of _holy shit this is an alien planet_ , followed by the deeper, sinking realization that he was completely alone and that the portal was nowhere in sight. But the urgency had begun to wear off after barely a minute of basic reconnaissance, to the point where it had somehow made perfect sense to sit down and rest his eyes.

Obviously their mission briefing had been short a few key details.

Still, the fact that they'd landed in a trap seemed to confirm that someone on this side knew how to find the next incoming portal. It didn't explain why the portal he'd just stepped through had vanished or gone invisible or whatever the hell, but they had ten months to work on that problem.

Sam took a moment to observe that their plan had gone off the rails from basically the moment they'd touched down, _just_ like he'd predicted. The soporific must have gotten Natasha as well. He couldn't see a way around it. Steve had probably been more resistant, what with the serum and all, but whether he'd been able to stay conscious long enough to get Natasha out was anybody's guess. It was also anybody's guess where the two of them were now.

Above him, a sudden rustle of motion let him know that Wanda was coming around. She gave a quick, startled gasp, but quieted at Vision's warning.

And now Sam realized why they had to stay silent. Below them, he could hear multiple sets of footfalls and the deep rumble of voices, muted by the layers of leaves between them. The individual words were indistinct, but he could tell that they weren't in English. Were these the Nyth they'd heard about? Or — no, the locals got mercenaries to do their heavy lifting. This had to be the hired help.

The tree towered overhead — Sam was sitting barely a third of the way up — and the lowest of the branches were still a good twenty feet off the ground. Only a flyer like Vision could have gotten them up there without gear. This location was probably secure for the time being, as long as they didn't draw attention to themselves. However, if enemy patrols were thick on the ground, it was risky for them to break cover, even through the air.

Sam followed Clint's example and started creeping his way carefully out along the branch that he'd been straddling. There was a break in the layer of leaves below, and if he could just catch the right angle…

A pair of alien voices approached. Sam held his breath and craned his neck, and for a brief second, one of them crossed his line of sight.

He saw bull's horns, thick leather armor, and the hilt of a sword.

How had this become his life.

Sam looked up quickly at Clint's sudden wave. Clint had made it quite a bit higher among the branches by now, and was staring hard into the distance.

_Eyes on two_ , he signaled.

That was something, at least.

So maybe the basic elements of the plan were still intact. The covert team hadn't been discovered. Steve and Natasha were still in the area, presumably captured or about to be, but that was as expected. The two of them could still create a diversion if necessary. Sam's group just had to stay close and be ready to take advantage of it.

Clint finished his survey of their surroundings and climbed back down to join the rest of them.

"What's the situation?" Sam asked in a low whisper.

"Woods are crawling with them," Clint replied. "I make it at least seventy. Big suckers with swords. Mostly moving toward the perimeter now, but there's a cluster of three holding position at the center of the landing zone. Nat and Steve are in a clearing about a hundred yards east, heavily guarded. Both still out, or looks that way."

Wanda said, "They don't know we made it into the trees, do they? We can just stay here until they leave."

That sounded ideal to Sam, which probably meant that it was too easy.

"Worth a try," Clint said, "but I'm keeping an eye on that group in the middle. Something about 'em I don't like."

 

* * *

 

_Let's try this again_.

Initial assessment: reflexes and motor control impaired but recovering. Noticeable pain on right cheekbone, likely from a burn; not a hindrance. Best guess, she'd been unconscious for roughly two hours.

Secondary assessment: Steve was lying on the ground next to her, awake but pretending otherwise. Heavy footfalls could be heard from all directions, but there were no other bodies nearby. A good chance, then, that the rest of the team hadn't been found.

Tertiary assessment: she'd been searched while she'd been out. Her gear was gone, including — disappointingly — all of the knives. By the warmth of the sun on her skin, she'd been moved from beneath the trees to a cleared area, which she had to assume was outside the perimeter of the trap.

Natasha opened her eyes to slits, and found herself surrounded by aliens.

Each of them had a pair of wide, curving horns, a mane of coarse brown hair, and deep, orange-brown skin. The torso was basically human-looking, but the face, legs and hooves were bovine. The entire race seemed to be built on Steve's scale: six feet tall or better, every one of them. The uniform of the day was leather armor, heavy and well worn. Each belt bore a three-foot broadsword.

So: probably strong, probably fast. Probably not expecting someone her size to be any kind of threat. Humanoid body, which meant that the throat was a vulnerable target. Not much flexibility in the hips or knees. And top-heavy. That was always fun.

They moved in pairs, occasionally exchanging a few words with each other in a language like nothing Natasha had ever heard before. Eavesdropping was useless, so she and Steve had no reason to pretend to be asleep any longer.

She sat up slowly, testing each muscle group in turn. The fatigue and disorientation were evaporating quickly; whatever they'd been drugged with, Natasha wouldn't have minded getting her hands on the formula. Steve followed her lead and sat up alongside her. He had a nasty red brand running the length of his cheekbone, with attendant swelling, and Natasha had to assume that she was similarly afflicted. Otherwise, he seemed to be uninjured and fully alert.

An alien guard, upon seeing that the two of them were conscious, altered course to walk by and drop a pair of leather water sacks. How generous.

She angled her head toward Steve and murmured, "You good?"

"Yeah," he whispered back. "You?"

She nodded. "What's our play?"

"They're not convinced we're the only ones who came through. They keep running sweeps of the landing zone. We need to pull some of them off the perimeter."

Natasha agreed. If the rest of the team hadn't been caught, then they had to be hiding somewhere close by, waiting for their chance to break out of enemy containment.

In the distance, she heard a sudden shout. It was echoed from closer by, and then again — a message being passed along the perimeter line. Moments later, a plume of grey smoke began to rise from somewhere within the forest. It was only a narrow column at first, but then it began to expand rapidly in all directions, much too evenly to have been a natural phenomenon.

Yeah — diversion time.

"Just don't forget that we eventually have to lose," she told Steve as they both stood up.

This, of course, attracted some attention from the soldiers who were on prisoner-guarding duty rather than perimeter-guarding duty. One of them barked a command and gestured sharply at the ground. When this did not have the desired effect, he and two of his buddies strode over to make their point more forcefully.

"Hi there," Natasha said, and smiled.

The guard's backhand was so lazy she was insulted. Duck, pivot, jab, and her fingers found the gap between armor and chin. He gagged and doubled over. A kick to the knee shattered bone and dropped him to the ground. She whipped her heel across his jaw and laid him out cold.

Natasha turned back to Steve in time to see him dispatch the second of his two opponents with a right cross. It was obvious to her that he was holding back from his full strength, but hopefully the enemy wasn't so perceptive.

After that, things got exciting.

The pummelling Natasha eventually took when it was time to be overpowered was… annoying. But after she and Steve had had their arms bound, and been hauled back to their feet, she caught a glimpse of Clint, now safely outside the perimeter and under the cover of the forest that stretched off to the south of the clearing. He flashed her the OK sign, and vanished.

 

* * *

 

Jean had been tense all week. Admittedly, 'tense' on Jean would have been 'inscrutable' on a lot of other people, but Tony had some experience with her brand of inscrutable and he could spot the signs. It wasn't tough to guess why, either: three days ago, it had been three hundred days since the last portal. The next batch of abductees, if there were any, were due any minute now.

It wasn't a surprise, then, when a welcoming committee of Minos marched out to the western road that evening. Assuming that the intake procedure hadn't changed, the prisoners would be transferred from the pick-up team to local custody, go through Kel and Aaron at the infirmary, and end up at the dormitory buildings. Depending on how many had to be processed, they could be at it until well after dark.

Of course, there was always the hope that the portal had come up empty this time, but based on the brief encounter Tony'd had with Jean's rear guard team, he wasn't holding his breath.

It was just after the evening meal, and most of the prisoners were scattered around the open area of the town square, waiting for the inevitable lassitude to set in. Small groups chatted in sign, which the Minos had continued to ignore. At this point, pretty much everyone could count, fingerspell and carry on a rudimentary conversation. Aaron and Ann held regular practice sessions for those who wanted to expand their vocabulary further.

Almost a typical evening… but not quite. Jean wasn't the only one who knew what day it was. Throughout the crowd, there were frequent curious glances directed west. Most of the expressions Tony saw were tinged with concern, but a few carried anticipation, as if there were any chance that a rescue mission was still inbound.

_We_ are _the rescue mission, kids. Hate to break it to you._

But then things started to go off-script. Barely five minutes after the local guards had set out, they came marching back in flanking formation around a short double column of the more heavily armored Minos who'd presumably come from the landing site. A Nyth was with them, ugly as ever, skittering along a few yards behind the formation. And at the center of it all…

Romanoff. And Rogers.

They were _here_. They were— _They_ were—

Shock struck his chest like an anvil. They were here. The evidence was in front of his eyes, but the data wouldn't process. They were here. They were _stuck_ here. What the _fuck_ had they done?

The prisoners retreated quickly from the square and gathered together at the picnic tables. Tony felt curious eyes on him from all sides, but he didn't dare, he _couldn't_ turn away from the view in front of him.

Natasha's face was sporting a fresh brand, and Tony's own scar started to throb in sympathy. She'd also acquired an impressive black eye and defensive wounds on her hands, which had been bound together in front of her. Rogers' brand was already starting to heal, and his arms were lashed to a thick wooden log that rested on his shoulders like a yoke.

_Focus. Think_.

Okay. The scenario was all wrong. If Rogers had intended to escape, then he would have done it, or else he would have caused enough trouble trying that the Minos would have done a hell of a lot more than restrain his arms. Likewise, if Natasha was walking under her own power, then she was exactly where she wanted to be. Which meant—

Tony looked around quickly for Jean, and yeah, she'd gotten there, too. She wasn't watching the procession at all, she was scanning the treeline.

Pretty soon it was all hands on deck. Boss Mino emerged from his office, a group of twenty reinforcement Minos joined the guards on duty, and Kel came striding briskly out of the infirmary. Boss Mino, the Nyth and the leader of the external team all conferred, while Kel stood close by, her expression carefully blank.

If Rogers and Romanoff were here, then at the minimum, so were Wilson and Barton. Best guess, they'd sent one unit to infiltrate the camp, while the other prepared to launch a surprise attack from the outside. These two had clearly put up a decent fight before letting themselves be captured, probably to distract the guards from the others who'd come through.

That was what it looked like to Tony. To the Nyth, however, Rogers and Romanoff must have looked like a rescue team. A _failed_ rescue team.

Boss Mino shouted out a command, and all of the Minos fell back, forming two straight lines along opposite sides of the square.

Tony had seen that configuration once before.

The only figures left in the center were the Nyth, the two captives, and Kel. The Nyth, in its alien language of rattles and clicks, addressed Kel at some length.

She replied in the Minotaurs' language. Her attitude was dismissive. Unimpressed.

That was the wrong answer. More rattling. The two prongs of the Nyth's tail began to twitch, and the clicking of its secondary pincers grew more emphatic. An attempted rescue had to be punished, that much Tony had gathered, but he didn't understand why the Nyth wanted Kel's input, or what the two of them were disagreeing about.

Kel tried to demur one more time, but the Nyth snapped one of its heavy front pincers at her, and she pulled up short. Discussion over.

She turned and advanced on Rogers. He watched her with wary confusion, but didn't try to fight or evade when she reached up and lightly settled her thumb on his forehead.

Tony recognized the gesture. She'd used it on him a couple of times ( _five times_ ) to rapidly put him under. But that wasn't what happened now.

Skin met skin, and Rogers _howled_.

Tony lurched forward without conscious thought, but he'd barely gotten to his feet before Jean appeared out of nowhere and slammed him back down on the bench.

" _Do nothing_ ," she breathed in his ear.

The same drama repeated itself all around him — friends restrained friends with grips on arms and hands over mouths, and all the while Steve was screaming in agony and no one was doing a fucking thing to stop it.

No one except Natasha.

She dropped her restraints like they were nothing, took two quick steps, and launched herself into the air, legs hooking around Kel's throat. Except Kel blocked and twisted and somehow flung her off again.

Steve, freed from whatever the fuck Kel had been doing to him, collapsed to his knees and bent over double, gasping for breath.

Nat got her feet beneath her and landed in a crouch. Kel looked down at her, cocked her head to one side, and smiled.

Tony had gone up against Kel plenty of times in their weapons practice sessions. She was highly trained and brutally fast. His combat unit, collectively, was still barely able to inconvenience her. Tony had no trouble believing that she was the product of a culture that lived by the sword. But never before that moment had he seen her look at her opponent with such predatory glee.

Natasha sprang back up and attacked again, and Kel matched her, move for move and blow for blow. For five heart-pounding seconds, it seemed like neither one had the advantage. Then Kel's fist lashed out and tagged Natasha squarely on the brand.

Anyone else would have probably screamed. Nat barely grunted, barely staggered, but it was a moment's distraction and that was enough. Kel's elbow clipped her temple and her knee rammed into her stomach. They closed, grappled, and Kel sent her flying over her shoulder. Natasha twisted midair and tried to land on her feet again, but she hit the ground on her heels and went over backwards, flinging her arms out to break her fall.

…At least, that was what it probably looked like to anyone who was prepared to believe that Natasha could ever be thrown off balance. But Tony was not one of those people, and he saw the hand signal buried in the excess motion: _hold fire_.

Unfortunately, Rogers missed the message. He'd finally managed to shake off whatever damage Kel had done. Kel stalked toward Natasha again, still with that feral grin, and he surged to his feet and wrenched his arms forward. There was a resounding _crack_ as the log across his back shattered.

Suddenly the Minos were back in it. They rushed forward en masse to contain him, but Rogers flung them aside like ragdolls, one after the other, clearing a path between him and Kel. If he got his hands on her—

The Nyth darted forward, and its tail struck Rogers between the shoulder blades. Instantly, his eyes rolled back and he collapsed, unconscious or worse.

There were still enough Minos left to subdue Natasha. She made them pay for it, but finally two of them managed to pin her by the arms. Kel nonchalantly stepped over injured and unconscious Minos to slap her on the hand, and she too went limp.

Just like that, it was over. Whatever _it_ had been, and Tony still wasn't completely sure. Earth's mightiest rescue team had been publicly taken apart, yes, but had that been the only point? All that trouble for a display of superiority? Maybe, in part, it had been a test of Kel's loyalty. Or maybe it had just been the Nyth's idea of _fun_.

More rattles, more barked commands. Kel had Natasha dragged off in the direction of the infirmary. Then she crouched by Rogers and touched his face again. Another impenetrable conversation ensued between her and the Nyth, after which the squadron of soldier Minos hoisted Rogers up between them and carried him off, not to the infirmary or the prison building, but back west toward the road.

Toward the road. Not the camp. And suddenly the pieces came together with ice-cold clarity: the Nyth were bioengineers, and Rogers was a masterpiece of bioengineering. They'd wanted to see just how far his enhanced strength extended, and Rogers had gone right ahead and fucking obliged. Now he was clearly too interesting a catch to be wasted on simple slave labor.

Tony didn't need to ask if Jean had figured it out as well. Her white-knuckled grip on the bench and the horror in her eyes told the story.

Boss Mino had some words for those members of his staff still on their feet. They, in turn, rounded on the prisoners and started herding everyone back to the dorms. Playtime was over.

Before Tony was separated from her, Jean had one more whispered message for him. "Tonight. Be ready."

 

* * *

 

Rustling branches and some stray falling leaves warned Sam that Clint was on his way back down from his lookout post. A few seconds later, he dropped the final ten feet into their most recent campsite. He straightened up, and his face was tight with barely restrained anger.

"We've got a new problem," he said.

It seemed to Sam like the past three days had consisted of nothing _but_ new problems. The booby-trapped landing zone and the smoke that had driven them out of their hiding spot had been just the beginning. Next, they'd learned that the alien soldiers — who looked so much like Minotaurs that Sam wondered if one of them hadn't visited Greece back in the day — really, _really_ liked their wide patrols. No matter how far back Sam's team dropped from the squadron they were shadowing, they still had to take cover from enemy scouts multiple times per day. The mental stress of constantly being on alert took an already strenuous hike and turned it into an exhausting forced march.

Then, after they'd been walking for less than an hour, Vision made an unexpected discovery.

"Normally, the nature of my contact with other matter is, to a large measure, within my control," he said. "Here, however…" He placed his hand on the trunk of a nearby sapling, and pressed. Above them, the crown of leaves swayed in response. "I can interact, but I cannot choose _not_ to interact."

"Are you all right?" Wanda asked. "Is it injuring you?"

Vision regarded his own hand curiously. "I'm not sure."

Sam hadn't even realized that Vision could _be_ injured, and he certainly had no idea how any of them could help. Plus, if their environment was having some kind of adverse effect on Vision, he had to wonder what the hell was it doing to the humans in the party.

Besides trying to eat them. It was definitely doing that.

Wanda, for all that she had no military background, was bearing up under the conditions surprisingly well. She hauled her gear and stood her watches just as well as the rest of them, without a word of complaint. And when the tree they'd decided to camp under on their first night turned out to house a nest of giant bugs that looked like some unholy combination of a spider and a centipede, Wanda was the one who'd swept them all up in a force field and held them there until Sam, Clint and Vision could grab the packs and get the hell out.

Wanda was also the one who'd spotted the ten-foot-long… Sam decided to go with 'snake', even though it was covered in sleek brown fur. It was little more than a pair of eyes at first, barely visible in the shadows beneath a fallen log, but when it realized there were intruders in its territory, it came slithering out with fangs bared. They all backed _right_ the hell off, and it coiled itself up again, lifted its head into the air, and let out a long, rasping cry.

One of its buddies repeated the call back to it from somewhere in the distance, then another, and another, until it was clear that the small valley in front of them was swimming with the things. The Minotaurs had marched straight through, but Sam's group decided unanimously to go around.

The next day, it started to rain, which meant that all the bugs and other critters that should have been safe and quiet in their burrows instead came washing up to the surface. Sam was still waiting on a satisfactory explanation for why every damned animal on this planet had to have fangs or pincers or a stinger — or all three.

And on and on it had gone, with the weather, the wildlife, the terrain and the enemy all operating at maximum levels of obnoxiousness. Sam would have been more surprised if Clint _hadn't_ uncovered a new problem.

He had to admit, though, that he hadn't been remotely prepared for the story Clint told.

"Where's Steve now?" he asked when it was done.

"Last I saw, they were taking him back out the way we came in," Clint answered. "He's alive, at least. Too much security for a dead man. They brought a wagon out that way and built restraints into it. Took their time about it, too. The giant scorpion has standards."

Shit. _Shit_. They'd never even considered the possibility that Steve and Nat would be split up. Sam knew that this was a moment to regroup and carefully weigh their options… but it was damned tempting to hit the convoy that had captured Steve with everything they could bring to bear.

"And Natasha?" Sam asked. "Is she—"

"Somewhere in the camp," Clint said tightly. "I don't know where. Unconscious, last I saw." His fist clenched on the grip of his bow. "She told me not to fire, but I could've at least—"

"No, you couldn't," Sam said, and hoped to hell he was right. "There were too many of them. Nat knew what she was doing."

"Pardon the interruption," Vision said, "but we have a visitor."

Sam turned swiftly, and got his first look at… well, _her_.

Kel was standing beneath a nearby tree behind them, regarding them all with mild curiosity. Sam hadn't heard so much as a leaf rustle at her approach. She was instantly recognizable, thanks to Peter's description — scarred face, missing hand — although Sam had been expecting some kind of injury rather than the deliberate markings she carried.

Also, he hadn't expected her to be able to inflict debilitating pain with a touch. Funny how that detail had gotten overlooked.

Clint instantly had an arrow nocked and aimed. "Give me one reason why I shouldn't shoot you through the eye," he said.

"Because I came here with a message," Kel replied, "and it would be impolite."

Sam hadn't seen the fight, but even at this distance, he'd heard the scream. And yeah, he got that Kel was undercover, and Clint had said that she'd tried to argue her way out of going through with it. None of that seemed to matter to his skin, though: it was still crawling.

However. This was supposed to be one of their allies. Shooting her in the face wasn't going to do anyone any good.

Sam held out his hands placatingly and started walking forward. "Last I heard," he said, "we were all on the same side here, so how about we talk this through and leave the weapons out of it?"

He was about two steps away from Clint's line of fire when the bowstring went _twang_ , and the arrowhead embedded itself in the tree trunk just a _hair_ to her left. Kel didn't so much as twitch.

"Sure," Clint said, and lowered the bow. "I'm all ears. What the fuck did you do to Steve?"

"What I was ordered to do," Kel said. She took a few slow steps forward, running her finger along the length of the arrow as she came. "The purpose was to cause the woman to attack, which then caused the man to show the range of his enhanced strength. I wish he hadn't done this, but it can't be changed now."

"The _woman_ 's name is Natasha," Clint snarled. "Where is she?"

"In one of the buildings, asleep. Prisoners are sedated at night to prevent plans and escape attempts. She is not damaged."

"And Steve? What are they doing with him?"

Kel hesitated, and Sam could see something like disgust in the curl of her mouth. "The Nyth want to make stronger workers," she said. "He is enhanced in a way that is new to them. They have a small camp for research two days to the south. They will take him there to study."

Oh, like _hell_ they would. "Not if we have anything to say about it," Sam said.

Kel shook her head. "You can't attack them."

"Who's going to stop us?" Clint demanded. "You?"

Her voice hardened a little. "Maybe you noticed that I knew exactly where all of you were — in particular _you_ , in the tree, deciding whether to shoot or not — and I said nothing, even though this is part of my job. It's fine if you hide. But if you attack, and I give no warning, then I am a failure, or I am a liar. I can't be either of these."

Clint clearly had a comeback ready, but Wanda stepped in first. "We understand—" and she shot Clint a quelling look "—that whatever we do here, everyone will be trapped with the consequences for another ten months."

Wanda paused, and she and Kel studied each other for a beat. Sam couldn't pretend to understand exactly what the deal was with Wanda's mental powers, and it was news to him that Kel had _any_ powers, but he felt instinctively that some manner of communication passed between them on a level of perception that he couldn't access.

"Do you know what will happen to Steve?" Wanda asked.

"Yes," Kel said simply.

That wasn't much of an answer, but Wanda gave a quick nod like her expectations had been met. "Do you think there's a way to get him back without putting anyone else at risk?"

"No. The question is how much risk, and which of us." Kel's focused widened again to include all four of them. "I know that you recognize me," she said. "This means you met the people we left on Earth, yes? So you know who Jean is. She sent me to tell you that she will meet you tonight, and we will decide what to do. Jean, me, the wo— Natasha," she amended with a glance in Clint's direction, "Tony, and at least one more from Jean's team. Now that you're here, we all work together. Is it acceptable?"

Clint, the consummate sniper, didn't twitch at the mention of Tony's name, but Sam could still feel the tension ratchet up another notch. That particular grudge wasn't going away any time soon.

However, fractured team dynamics were not Sam's top priority. A group discussion also meant _delay_. "You're sure this camp to the south is the only place they could be taking Steve?" he asked Kel.

"Yes," she said. "I heard the orders." She treated him to the same probing look she'd just given Wanda, and Sam had the uncomfortable sense that he was coming up short. "You think you can ambush them on the road. But there are dangers on this world that you don't know, and when you don't know, you put the rest of us in danger as well. Do you understand?"

Sam understood that she could stand to be a lot less patronizing, considering they'd done just fine on their own for the past three days (annoyed and occasionally soggy, but fine). But Vision spoke up before he could make an issue of it.

"Your terms are reasonable," Vision said. "We will take no unilateral action."

"Where's the meeting?" Sam asked.

"There's a place we use outside the camp," Kel said. "I'll come back and bring you there."

"When?"

"After dark." Kel looked toward the sun, which had long since dipped below the trees and was now approaching the horizon. "Not so much longer now, but we still have to wait for the camp to change from day to night guards." She stepped back again to reach behind the tree where she'd been waiting, and hefted a large canvas rucksack onto her shoulder. "You were warned about the water, I hope?"

Sam nodded.

"This is clean," she said. "All I could get right now. Food is more difficult, but I can work on this also."

The gesture surprised him, although he tried not to let on. "Thanks. We've got food rations for another week or so, but… yeah, the water's appreciated."

Vision, who was closest, took the bag from her and added it to their supplies. Kel watched him with a puzzled frown.

"You're hardly there at all," she said.

Vision afforded that remark a moment's solemn consideration. "And yet, I seem to manage," he replied.

"Hm."

She moved in closer — Sam took a sharp breath — and brought her palm up to hover an inch or so away from him. She ran it slowly up and down the length of his arm, then let it settle on the back of his hand.

Vision smiled faintly. "I do not believe that will work on me."

"No," Kel said. "Interesting." She drew back with something approaching respect, and turned to address the group again. "This place should be safe. Stay here, or close to here. I'll find you after sunset."

 


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An early draft of this chapter is the first piece of this story I ever wrote.
> 
> Also, my original outline was fifteen chapters total. I'm laughing... and also crying a bit.

Jean hadn't had the chance to give out the stimulant strips before they'd all been sent to their rooms, and she'd steadfastly refused to let Tony or anyone else besides her keep a stash of them, so Tony had no choice but to fall asleep on schedule. He woke up some disorienting amount of time later to a pounding heart, an itchy wrist, and Jean's silhouette looming over him.

Usual drill: tiptoe out of dorm, skulk around corners, jog across clearing, sneak through forest. Jean led him to their standard staging point, where Kel was waiting, alone.

"If the two of you have anything to sort out," Jean said, "please sort it out now. I'll be back in several minutes." She vanished into the shadows, leaving awkwardness in her wake.

Kel was sitting on a fallen log, doing her best impression of a person who would never in a million years raise a hand against Captain America or the Black Widow, let alone incapacitate the former and punch the latter in the face.

"Den mother thinks we're fighting," Tony said, which he had to admit was not his greatest opening line.

"Are we fighting?" Kel asked.

He scrubbed his face with both hands. Of _course_ this latest display of her powers had been deeply unsettling. That scream… what it must have taken to drag a sound like that out of Rogers… and _she_ didn't seem terribly concerned about the whole thing, which wasn't exactly helping matters.

"He'll recover, right?" Tony found himself asking. "Between you and the…" He made a quick jabbing motion. "The scorpion sting?"

"Yes," Kel said. "For now, he is not damaged. They will keep him contained for travel."

She didn't point out that he hadn't answered the question.

_Were_ they fighting? Kel's scary streak was old news, really. He could freak out about this newest facet of it, but frankly, his freaking-out capacity had already been stretched to the limit when he'd seen Rogers and Romanoff come strolling into camp. Even after ten months, the whole Sokovia Accords debacle still _hurt_ , never mind… the other thing. And now they were _here_ — that phrase kept circling his mind, pointlessly, again and again — and all the old conflicts were going to pick up right where they'd left off.

Tony abruptly made the executive decision that he had bigger things to worry about than Kel and the ramifications of her alien powers. "You told me your touch was a weapon," he said. "Not like I wasn't warned. And based on—" he could barely spit out the words "—Avengers team meeting precedent, I'm about to be fighting with everyone _else_ , so, after due consideration, I've decided that I would rather not be fighting with you at present. That work for you?"

"That… 'works for me'," she responded — a little stiltedly, but points for effort.

"Fantastic."

The silence was still awkward, but less so than the talking had been, so Tony decided he could live with it. He sat down on the log beside her (albeit just out of arm's reach), and they both waited for Jean to return and kick off the next phase of the summit.

When Jean arrived, she was of course accompanied by Natasha, and also by another woman whom Tony recognized but hadn't met before. She was in her late twenties, with dark brown skin and a cheerful explosion of curly black hair that was barely held at bay with a headband. Tony couldn't guess what her role in all this was, but Jean presumably had her reasons.

Natasha was now wearing the same uniform as the rest of the prisoners. Her face was… well, the brand was at a particularly nasty point in the healing process, and the punch hadn't done it any favors. She still had her black eye, plus some new cuts and bruises from the evening's tussle with the Minos. It was unusually shoddy work on Kel's part: Tony knew from experience that she could repair minor injuries like that in a matter of seconds.

The moment Jean appeared, Kel sprang up and said, "I'll find the rest and meet you there, yes?"

"Yes," Jean answered, and it was Kel's turn to vanish.

"Impressive setup you have here," Natasha said, and rubbed the base of her wrist with her thumb.

"Thank you," Jean said, with just the tiniest hint of an edge to her voice. "It took no small amount of effort to arrange. For those of you who haven't done this before," she continued smoothly, "we have roughly fifteen minutes of walking ahead of us. Stay together and please keep the conversation to a minimum. We're unlikely to be heard by the guards, but I'd rather not unsettle the local wildlife any more than necessary."

Considering that Tony still hadn't seen any of this fabled local wildlife, that line struck him as weak. Not that he cared. Natasha kept trying to catch his eye, which was surely a prelude to _talking_ , and he'd take any excuse to put it off.

He'd made this walk so many times by now, he didn't need Jean to lead the way. She didn't object when he pulled out a few steps ahead of her. New Girl was sticking right by Jean's side, and Natasha followed close behind them. Tony tried to let the modest mental effort of keeping his footing on the forest floor in the dark drown out every other thought.

Of course, that state of mind couldn't last, because they soon arrived at the training ring. Jean went through her usual setup with the vine-light, then she and New Girl sat down next to each other just in front of the camouflage curtain.

Leaving Tony alone with Natasha.

"It's good to see you again, Tony," she said.

Right. "You, um…" He gestured vaguely toward his own face. "You all right?"

"I've had worse. What about you?"

Her hand started to come up like she was going to reach for his scar, and Tony took a fast step back.

"Yeah, it's fine," he said quickly. "Ancient history. Doesn't matter. I'm just surprised Kel didn't do a better clean-up job on yours."

Nat gave a faint shrug. "I suspect I'm an object lesson in the hazards of defiance."

Ah. Well, that made about as much fucked-up sense as anything else did around here.

From the look on her face, Tony knew he was being _assessed_ (because that bit sure as hell never got old). Whatever she was seeing, it somehow encouraged her to make another conversational foray.

"I've been briefed on the 'no talking' rule," she said. "Considering the circumstances, I'm impressed you're still alive."

It was just a joke. Tony knew that. She expected him to chuckle and make some kind of crack about levels of hell or whatever. Friendly banter, just like old times.

"I had my jaw broken five times in five days," he said instead, and was rewarded by a look of horror.

"Tony… I'm so sorry. I had no idea."

He didn't think he'd ever taken Nat so utterly off her guard before, and the accomplishment gave him a mean little thrill. "There was some business with a whip, too," he added casually. "I won't bore you with the details."

"I'm sorry," she said again. "You're right, I have no idea what you've been through. I shouldn't have assumed."

Tony shrugged. "No skin off my back. So to speak."

Nat allowed him to see her wince. "How long ago did it happen?"

"In the first month. But you really mean, how come I can still…" He wagged his jaw back and forth. "Funny story, actually. Kel is, among other entertaining things, an empathic healer. Can repair a shattered mandible bone overnight, no problem." He shot Natasha a sarcastic smile. "Convenient, isn't it, for the discipline-conscious overseer who still needs the disciplinee to be ready for work the next morning."

Tony could tell that his responses weren't matching up to her expectations for this conversation, whatever the hell those had been. "I can only imagine how difficult these last ten months have been for you," Natasha said carefully. "But we came after you, Tony. We _all_ came after you."

She was off her game. Normally her lies weren't so transparent. "No, you didn't," he said, and walked away.

The clearing might have been circular, but this was absolutely going to come down to _sides_. Tony joined up with his, and sat himself down next to New Girl.

"We haven't met yet," he said, and offered his hand. "Tony."

Her eyes went very wide, and he could see that she had a bit of an overawed thing going on — and no, that wasn't _ego_ , it was just something that _happened_ around him sometimes, whether for Iron Man-related reasons or Tony Stark-related reasons. He'd found it best to aggressively ignore it.

She regrouped after a second and took his hand. "Alisha."

"So what's your role in Jean's merry little band?"

"I work in processing," she said, and looked away shyly. "We haven't met, but, um… we've corresponded."

And just like that, the night wasn't a total waste after all. "You're the _chemist_."

"Yeah," she said, still looking bashful. "You fixed my power series that one time."

Reasons to smile were few and far between in this hellhole, and Tony latched onto this one with everything he had. "That _one time_ , yeah — that thing was a monster. But the theory? That was all you. It's brilliant work. And I'll bet they didn't exactly set you up with your own laboratory."

She relaxed enough to give a faint chuckle. "Not exactly, no."

The messages delivered to the work boot postal box had slowly tapered off in frequency until the last one had been about a month ago, but _damn_ , they'd been fun while they'd lasted. The problem, fundamentally, was that the basic scientific laws that governed this universe were just a _smidge_ different from back home (yes, 'smidge' was the technical term). The changes weren't significant enough to make the place lethal to humans, but sometimes they compounded with each other in unexpected ways.

And for someone trying to manufacture explosives — as the calculations Alisha had sent him clearly indicated she was doing — 'unexpected' was a _bad_ quality to have in one's work.

Tony would have cheerfully spent the rest of the night talking about theoretical chemistry and how she'd designed her manufacturing process, but Kel chose that moment to arrive and end his brief reprieve. She was trailed by Barton ( _called it_ ), Wilson ( _ditto_ ), Wanda and Vision.

Together with Romanoff and Rogers, that made one on his side (in principle, anyway) and five on theirs. Fan-fucking-tastic.

Kel stopped in front of Natasha. "That one tried to punish me by shooting an arrow near me," she said without preamble, jerking her head toward Barton. "It didn't work, but if you have a more direct—"

Natasha hauled off and slugged her.

Kel's head snapped to one side. When she faced forward again, blood was running down her chin and her nose was visibly misshapen.

"Is it enough?" she asked politely.

Natasha contemplated her handiwork for a moment. "Yeah, I'm good."

Barton added, " _That one_ 's name is Clint, not that anyone seems to care."

Kel was the very picture of nonchalance as she re-straightened her nose. She spat out a mouthful of blood and mopped off her face, then sat herself down on Jean's left like nothing had happened. By the time she was settled, no trace of injury remained.

"You know," said Sam, who hadn't stopped staring at her, "your buddies back on Earth need to work on making sure their mission briefings cover _all_ mission-critical intel."

"That problem's endemic to the whole organization," Tony said before he could stop himself.

Jean gave a faint sigh. "I have no organization," she said.

"Oh, believe me, we noticed."

Well, he got a smile out of Kel, anyway.

The new arrivals formed a line and sat themselves down, and the majority of the attention settled on Jean.

"So you're her," Sam said.

"So you're them," Jean responded.

"So that's introductions out of the way," said Tony. "Was there anything else on the agenda? Because some of us have work in the morning."

Jean sent him a faintly reproving look. In spite of his best efforts, he felt faintly reproved.

She did run through her people's names properly, and Natasha responded in kind. Tony didn't make it onto either list — and yes, _obviously_ both groups knew him already, but it still felt like a slight.

"We all know the problem," Jean continued. "The Nyth are taking Captain Rogers to a secondary location. His prospects there are not good. I don't doubt that you want to take immediate and aggressive action. However, any such action could have long-term ramifications for every human on this planet. I've asked you here so that we can all discuss the options and their consequences."

Alisha picked up a twig from the ground and started stripping it of bark, carefully avoiding eye contact. "Okay, someone has to be cold enough to say it, and I guess I volunteer," she said. "There are almost a hundred and thirty people who've come through now. We all have exactly one shot left to get home. Do we really risk that — risk _everyone_ — for one person?"

The stab of anger was as quick and sharp as it was surprising, and Tony just barely closed his teeth on a scathing retort. He wasn't the only one, either: across from him, he could see a lot of clenched jaws and narrowed eyes. But — maybe because Alisha was so patently a civilian — no one immediately fired back.

"It needed to be said," Jean admitted. "And if even half the stories are true, Rogers himself would be the first to put other people's lives above his own."

She looked at Kel.

Kel said quietly, "They're going to take him apart."

"Look, there are four of us that the guards don't know about, right?" Sam said. "The entire point of the op was to give us a unit that could move covertly. We can go after Steve and get him out without putting anyone else at risk. That's the only move that makes sense here. Frankly, I don't understand what there is to discuss."

"No, you can't do this," said Kel, "because I have to go with you."

Sam was generally on the easy-going side of the temperament spectrum, but he immediately glared at Kel like she was working his last nerve. "I get that you've been here longer than we have," he said tightly, "but we've all seen our share of combat missions and we _don't_ need a babysitter."

"Do you know what is safe for humans to eat?" Kel asked. "Do you know how to treat the water? What kinds of predators there are, and when and how they hunt? Do you know anything about how the Nyth protect their camps?"

"Do you know that the guy to the left of me is pretty much indestructible?" Sam countered.

"Is it vibranium?" That, surprisingly, was Alisha. "I mean—" she turned awkwardly to Vision "—are you… made of vibranium? That was the rumor, but…"

"My body is composed of a synthesis of vibranium and artificially generated organic tissue," Vision said gravely.

"Right. And that's great on Earth, I'm sure, but around here, they have something called…" She grimaced. "I still can't pronounce it."

" _Rrzhtik-che_ ," Kel rasped.

"That," Alisha said. "They have that. It's a chemical compound that disrupts the structure of the vibranium metallic lattice and turns it brittle."

Vision frowned. "Nothing to my knowledge would allow such a thing. Are you certain?"

"Welcome to Venen-ka," Alisha said wryly. "Chemistry works _wrong_ here. I've seen the Mjentur test it on purified vibranium. The results were unambiguous. But it's more than that. The Nyth manufacture and sell vibranium weapons, which means they also keep a countermeasure. It's a pattern with them — the thing, and the counter-thing, always."

"Even so—" Sam began.

"My primary concern," Jean interjected, "is avoiding blowback on the camp. You may not have been observed specifically, but it's still not difficult to guess that if Rogers had allies, then they came through the portal. If it were me, and I knew that Rogers had been rescued by an outside force, I would immediately sequester Natasha as a potential saboteur, and I would put this camp through a sieve to determine whether the external force was in contact with anyone else, or had begun to compromise security in other ways. That goes double if there were some kind of disturbance at the camp — such as the medic going AWOL — immediately before Rogers disappeared. In the face of that kind of scrutiny, the side projects we have been setting up for the past twenty months will undoubtedly be uncovered, several of us will be executed, and the rest will lose their final chance to go home."

Her analysis temporarily took the wind out of everyone's sails.

After a pause, Barton shrugged and said, "Sounds like we're back to the four of us running the op by ourselves, only now it's a covert extraction. We'll get there, run surveillance, and work up a cover story."

"Difficult if you lose half your team before you arrive," Kel said.

"So you brief us on all the local nasties before we move out," Barton retorted. "Seriously, you're not talking to a pack of amateurs here!"

"I describe a plant, but I do it wrong because the language is still difficult. You think the leaves hide your scent, except you pick the one that attracts a swarm of _mershshket_. In a trip of two days, how many times do you take that risk?"

Jean asked, "Is there any pretext that you could use to leave the camp for a few days?"

She shook her head. "The Nyth was just here. If it wanted me, it would have said. I can move in the day, but I am expected back each night. If I leave, there is a problem."

"And if you don't—"

"I can't believe I'm still giving out my resumé," Sam said. "The four of us have this covered! There are no other options on the table!"

" _This_ option may not be on the table if it has no realistic chance of success," Jean said.

"Then what do you suggest? And don't you _dare_ tell me you plan to leave him there."

"I have to go," Kel said. "So there is a problem. So we all have to go. Jean and everyone you brought, me, Natasha, Tony. A group large enough to be blamed for all the things we did, so maybe no one else will be hurt. We run now, survive, and still get our chance in three hundred days. Attack from the outside instead of the inside."

"Hold on a second," Alisha said sharply. "That's not what I volunteered for. In fact, that sounds like the exact _opposite_ of what I volunteered for."

"I know. I'm sorry."

Jean asked, "Do you believe that we can all stay alive and hidden for that long?"

"Hidden close to here? No," Kel said. "We have to _run_. Get a lot of distance quickly, stay far away from the camp, circle back much later."

"And, what, hide in a cave somewhere for ten months? _Christ_ ," Alisha breathed. "Kel, maybe this stuff comes easy to you, but for some of us, that sounds _terrifying_."

"Exactly," Sam chimed in. "I can't believe you think that taking ten or more people, including civilians, on the run for _three hundred days_ is safer than the four of us running a four-day operation!"

"I think you know _nothing_ about this planet," Kel shot back, "and this includes how lucky you were to travel just behind a group of three twenty-fives of Mjentur who cleared the way for you. If you fail — and you _will_ — then some of you die and the rest have the same problem with less time to react."

"You've got one hell of an arrogant streak, you know that?"

"Yes, I like this word of yours, 'arrogant'," she said. "To know something others don't and to say so. On j'Brenn, this is a compliment."

"That's not exactly the definition I—"

"There might be another possibility," said Natasha.

All heads turned toward her.

She focused her attention on Jean and asked, "How much contact does the camp have with the rest of the world?"

Jean's eyes narrowed slightly, but she answered, "There's a supply caravan that comes in every twenty-five days. They bring food and other supplies, and collect refined vibranium and the next list of requisitions. The camp commandant sends in written reports every fifty days. A Nyth overseer visits at prisoner transfers and once or twice in between, at irregular intervals."

"Guard rotation," Alisha prompted.

"Right, thank you. The commandant and his staff have been in place for as long as I've been here, but the rank-and-file guards rotate in and out on a ten-month cycle, offset by five months from the portals." She fixed Natasha with a hard stare. "You want to take the camp now."

Natasha gave her the ghost of a smile. "Don't you?"

"I've wanted to take the camp from the moment I set foot inside it," Jean replied evenly. "That doesn't make it strategically sound."

"When your combat-ready personnel numbered two, maybe not. But your resources have changed."

Jean fell silent for a moment, presumably thinking it through. "The supply runs are an obvious vulnerability," she said. "We would have to keep a few Mjentur alive and convince them to play along every time."

"I can be very convincing," said Natasha.

"Actually," Barton said, "there might be another way around that problem. Wanda?"

"It is… possible," she said slowly. "I could try to give the visiting guards an image of an… uneventful delivery. If it goes well, they will see what they expect to see. But with non-human minds… I can't be certain until I try it."

Something small and ugly inside Tony's chest sparked him into saying, "You sure you can manage something that mundane? Some supply clerk starts having nightmares about a global shortage of green sludge, one thing leads to another, and the whole economy could crash."

Her face twisted with anger. "I don't know, Stark," she bit out, "but I have a much better chance without an electric collar around my neck."

"Cool it, both of you," Natasha said sharply. "So the supply runs can be managed. What's next?"

"The written reports," Jean said. "Kel, you speak Mjeth. Can you write it as well?"

"Enough," she said. "I saw some of the letters. Standard information. I can write more."

"Hang on," Alisha protested. "Let's skip to the end here. Even if we manage to bluff our way through day-to-day operations, we're still screwed at shift change, and that's happening in five months, not ten."

"But that gives us five months to prepare our defenses," said Natasha. " _All_ of us, acting openly and working together, instead of a team of four that has to stay invisible."

"Jean?" Alisha arched her eyebrows incredulously. "Jean, stop looking like that and tell her that this is ridiculous."

Tony wasn't sure what look Alisha had been complaining about, because when he turned to catch Jean's reaction, she just looked exhausted. Her expression didn't seem to change, but suddenly he noticed how the harsh blue light set off the worry lines in her forehead and around her eyes. Jean lowered her gaze, and it was as vulnerable as Tony had ever seen her.

"What you're describing is my nightmare," she said quietly. "It has been from the moment we arrived. For months, I spent every waking moment running different scenarios: if we had to break the camp early and take everyone on the run, how many could I keep safe, and for how long? And no matter what I tried, or how hard I fought, the outcome was invariably grim."

Equally quietly, Natasha replied, "I imagine you didn't factor the Avengers into your calculations."

Jean's head tilted in acknowledgment. "True. I did not."

"We're here now," Natasha said, "and we all have the same goal: to protect our people and bring them home. I want to go after Steve as much as anyone else, but it's not just about him. Every person in this camp deserves to have a hand in taking back their freedom."

Jean was silent again. For all her protests, Tony could tell that the idea was gaining traction. It was there in the way her fingers flexed, like her hands itched to hold a weapon. It was there in the determined set of her jaw.

If Tony could pick up on which way the wind was blowing, Natasha surely could as well. She stayed silent, not staring at Jean but clearly attentive to her every twitch.

Finally, Jean turned to her left. "We've talked through this before," she said to Kel. "Suppose, for the sake of argument, that lack of personnel is no longer a problem. What do you think?"

Kel spoke a sentence in an alien language, and it wasn't Mjeth. The sound was completely different, all trilling R's and staccato vowels. Tony guessed that he was hearing whatever j'Brenithi spoke when they were at home.

Whatever she said, Jean understood it and almost cracked a smile. "For the sake of argument," she said, "assume yes."

Kel took her turn to sit in silence for a time, a frown of concentration on her face. Her finger traced small patterns in the dirt in front of her. "It will be difficult," she said eventually. "Many problems still to solve. But we know what we face. They don't. We could never last the three hundred days against them, but if we can keep what we did a secret for half of that… yes, maybe possible now, I think."

Jean nodded. "Alisha?"

She looked up sharply. "What?"

"I'm interested in your opinion."

"I've already given one opinion to the tune of 'Let's hang Captain America out to dry'," she said grimly. "I'm not sure this crowd can handle another one."

"All the more reason I need to hear it."

Alisha scowled at the ground in front of her. "Look, I get the argument," she said. "I would love to get this _thing_ off my face ten months early, no question about that. And I can see how having everyone working together without hiding what we're doing will let us get a lot more accomplished. But it still ends with _five months_ of them throwing everything they've got at us! Can you actually give me a plan for keeping everyone alive that doesn't have 'And then a miracle occurs' in the middle of it?"

"Carefully targeted preemptive strikes," said Jean.

She rolled her eyes. "That's not a plan, that's jargon for 'And then a miracle occurs'."

Jean looked left again and gave Kel a nod.

"What we do in five months is the difference between win and loss," Kel said. "Near to us, to the south, is the Nyth outpost where they will take the other man. It is for research and observation. Not large. Defense, but not much offence. We leave it alone for as long as possible so they don't send warnings across the sea. Then we steal their instrument for tracking the portals, and destroy them. Not such a problem.

"To the east, on the coast, is a Mjentur garrison. Many twenty-fives, some in training but most with years of experience. Many weapons. Also some Nyth, and all of their defenses. They protect the vibranium shipments, and prepare for attacks through the portal, and problems from us. The change of guard comes from there. When we are discovered, this is where the first attack will come from." Kel paused, and traced a small circle in the dirt. "If we allow them to attack, then we are on defense for all of the five months. They are trained well, and know the land better than I do. Large risk, I think, of deaths. If we do this and want all to survive, the garrison must be destroyed."

"And by 'destroyed'," Sam said carefully, "you mean…"

"I mean all must be killed."

"That's a hell of a proposition, coming from the medic."

"Sam, she's obviously not—"

"Yeah, no, I got that, Nat, I'm just saying, the sum total of information we've been given about this woman is: 'the medic'. So maybe it's time to hear a little more."

Kel met his scrutiny without flinching. "I am—"

"Kel is someone I trust unreservedly," Jean said. "She was a decorated soldier on her homeworld, and as she is the only one of us — or so I assume — who has the actual sacking of a city on her resumé, I have considerable confidence in her assessment of the Mjentur forces and how they can be countered."

This garnered Kel more than a few startled looks.

"If these things are done," Kel continued, unflustered, "then the Nyth across the sea have only silence. They must decide what it means, collect a force, travel here. Takes time."

"That buys us a few more weeks," said Jean. "The problems begin once the mainland brings its forces to bear."

"The closest city is large," Kel said. "A port for trade, and different mercenary groups nearby. More than just Mjentur. Once they understand the problem, they send easily five times the garrison."

"Everything we do from that point forward will be about delay," Jean said. "Our major advantage is that they cannot move quickly. They have no cargo planes or troop transports, and no long-range missiles or other aerial bombardment. To stop us, they have to _reach_ us. We have to make that as difficult as we can. They will cross the sea by ship, which means that our next step is to send an advance force to sabotage their fleet. The sea can be circumnavigated on foot, correct?"

"To the north, three twenty-fives of days or more," said Kel, "but yes."

"Alternatively," Natasha said, "Vision can fly."

In a rare turn of events, Jean look nonplussed. "Ah," she said.

"It is very likely that I could disable their ships," Vision said. "I would prefer to do so before the retaliatory force departs, rather than over open waters."

"How, exactly?" Jean asked.

He tapped the gem on his forehead, which glowed in response. "This has considerable power stored within it. I am able to channel it when needed."

Jean nodded slowly, and Tony could see her recalculating the level of firepower at her disposal. "Coming in from the direction of the sea would hopefully keep you out of range of their anti-vibranium countermeasures. Then, if you can… inflict damage from a distance, you could conceivably strand them on the other side of the water before they even know what's happening. That alone would buy us at least another month."

Vision nodded. "A reasonable objective."

"Even after they effect repairs or secure more ships, we can, I suspect—" her eyes flicked upward to the gem "—hold off a direct coastal assault indefinitely. They will have to disembark some distance away and come in by land, under cover."

"We can set explosions where they are likely to land," Kel continued. "Make them start even more to the north or south along the coast. To the north are cliffs, and to the south is territory for dangerous predators. Either way, it takes more weeks to move large numbers back to us."

"In the meantime," Jean said, "we establish a new camp in a defensible location in the foothills beyond the ravine, and take down the bridge. By the time the enemy is in a position to begin its advance, we will have had six months — maybe closer to seven if we're terribly lucky — to make the stretch of land that they have to cover as impassable as we can. At the end, we split into small combat teams, and use the high ground and our superior maneuverability to delay them further until it's time to make a run for the portal. And once that final portal closes behind us, everyone on Earth will be safe from this place for the next hundred fifty years."

For a second — _just_ for a second — Tony could feel himself getting swept up in it. The two of them honestly believed they could pull it off, that much was clear. The story they'd told had been very well rehearsed. He could easily imagine them trading ideas and spinning hypotheticals. Proposing each piece of the plan, finding the gaps, looking for work-arounds. Trusting and building off each other's capabilities.

Why that particular visual was making him want to punch things probably didn't bear close examination.

Their plan would have been pure fantasy with only the two of them to play all the parts. Now, with the influx of the Avengers, it inhabited that dangerous realm where, if a truly terrifying list of things all went _exactly_ right, it could theoretically work out the way they envisioned. In other words, the notion had gotten its claws into them both, and they were going to be focused on ways it could go right instead of ways it could go wrong.

After a respectful pause, Sam said, "At the risk of sounding like a broken record, where does Steve fit into this scheme?"

"On that front," Jean said, "we're back to your team's original idea: covert extraction. Only now, Kel and anyone else you need would be free to accompany you."

"I can get you there," Kel said, "and tell you everything I know about the Nyth and the outpost. How to get the man out, I still don't know."

Natasha said, "We'll keep working on that part. If I don't have to stay here and play prisoner, I think I'll tag along."

"If we go through with this, it's gonna get hairy at the end," Barton said. "I don't care how many traps we set, we gotta assume enough of them will make it through to mount a serious offensive."

"We'll just have to be more formidable than an alien army," Natasha said, and gave her shadow of a smile again. "There's precedent."

Even that oblique reference to New York hit Tony like a bucket of cold water between the shoulder blades. That was exactly what this was going to come down to — another alien army. No energy weapons or flying chariots or gargantuan armored space-whales this time… but also no armor. No guns or lasers or tactical displays. No FRIDAY. Or JARVIS. (No nuclear missiles.) Just medieval weapons and brute force and hopefully some explosives, versus the Nyth and whatever monsters they had fighting for them. Hand-to-hand combat, up close and bloody.

Not exactly his specialty.

Fucking portals.

Nat sobered quickly after her little quip, and looked left and right at her people, gathering a silent consensus. She, Barton and Wilson probably had the most realistic idea of the shitstorm they were volunteering for. Even so, it was no surprise that they were all committed to the cause. Vision could smash up wooden ships 'til the cows came home — no risk there. Wanda… Tony was frankly surprised that she'd come at all, even for Rogers. He couldn't get any kind of read on what she was thinking. She could do her bit during the 'pretend everything is normal' phase, after which he guessed that Jean and Nat would have the good sense not to put her on the front lines.

Jean and Nat. The Ladies In Charge Mutual Appreciation Society. Jean waited until Natasha gave her the nod — just a subtle dip of her chin, really — and that was it, approval conferred.

Looked nice.

Jean turned back to Alisha. "That's the plan," she said. "There are risks — I won't pretend otherwise — but I give you my word that I believe we can succeed. Will you help me?"

Tony was barely catching the fringes of the onslaught of sincerity that Jean was beaming out of her eyeballs. Alisha looked up, took the full brunt of it, and said, succinctly, "Shit."

Jean asked, "Was that a yes?"

"Jesus, Jean, you do this thing with your face and then…" She threw her hands up in defeat. "I already followed you this far."

Jean inclined her head. "Thank you." Then she said, "Tony?"

He looked up in fake surprise. "Oh, do I get to talk?"

"I didn't want to put you in the position of arguing against the rescue of your teammate." (Barton made some kind of scoffing noise that Tony didn't care about at all.) "However, I do need to know: if we commit to this course of action, will I have your support?"

As if his deciding to be the lone holdout would make the slightest bit of difference.

"This course of action," Tony said, "just so that we're clear, is the one that ends in a four-month land war. That's the one you want me supporting?"

"With luck, it will be closer to three months than four," Jean said, "but, fundamentally, yes."

"Even setting aside combat tactics, the _logistics_ —"

"—are a work in progress, to be sure."

"Can you even feed everyone for that long, once the supply wagons stop?"

"I have some preliminary thoughts in that direction. I'm sure it's one of many matters that we'll be discussing further."

Jean had no damned business being so calm. She'd spent the last twenty months setting up a neat, self-contained smash and grab, and in the course of one night, it had morphed into… into all of _this_. Tony would have felt marginally better about the whole mess if only she'd done him the courtesy of being _pissed_.

(Well. No, he probably wouldn't.)

He'd been running desperately through the logic, looking for a loophole, but he couldn't find one. Wilson and company were going after Rogers. Guaranteed, done deal, no force in this or any adjacent universe, etc. If they went alone and screwed it up — and Kel seemed utterly convinced that they would — then the crackdown would kick off anyway. From Jean's point of view, letting them go off on their own was an all-or-nothing gamble on an unknown commodity. Instead, she was opting for the plan that guaranteed a major confrontation but left her with some measure of control over when, where and how.

The fact that it was a major confrontation that they _couldn't possibly win_ didn't seem to be figuring into her math.

"You're going to start a war with the entire planet… for _him_?"

Pause. Review audio. Yeah, he'd just fucking said that last part out loud.

"There's no personal loyalty at work here," Jean said, still maddeningly calm. "I made a promise that every human on this planet would be brought safely home. It wouldn't have mattered whom they took. I won't leave anyone behind, if there's a chance they can be saved." Her head tilted slightly. "You think we can't win," she said, like the thought had just now occurred to her.

And just like that, the anger crested like a wave. "I think it doesn't _matter_!" he snapped. "They're going after Rogers regardless — you know that, right? Doesn't matter what you say, doesn't matter who else is put in danger, that's what they _do_. Your op was blown the second they landed. So, sure, you might as well try and get out in front of it, I _guess_. That's pretty much your only move at this point. But don't—" he had to choke out the last words "— _don't_ look at me with those earnest eyebrows of yours and act like my opinion means a fucking thing."

Sam, all righteous indignation, demanded, "You can't seriously think we should just leave him to be dissected?"

"Well, what else were you expecting? I already abandoned him once in a dead suit in a bunker in Siberia… or, wait, _is_ that how it happened? I can't remember."

Natasha glared at both of them. "We are not here to rehash old arguments. _Drop it_."

Tony's mouth seemed to have taken on a life of its own. "You say that now," he heard himself say, "but by my watch, you're due to switch sides any second, so—"

Jean was suddenly on her feet and standing dead in front of him. "We're going for a walk," she announced.

"I'm sorry, you seem to have me confused with—"

"Right _fucking_ now, Stark."

His jaw snapped shut. He looked up at her expression and knew instinctively that if he wasn't on his feet in the next two seconds, he'd find himself slung over her shoulder.

He stood up. She walked. He followed.

The light quickly faded into the distance behind them. Jean was heading away from camp at a solid clip, and Tony was pretty sure she was deliberately bending branches aside only to let them spring back again and smack him in the face. He grit his teeth and kept up.

Jean led him deeper and deeper into the forest — deep enough that he was starting to have some qualms about finding his way back. With her ridiculously long legs, she held a pace that he practically had to jog to match. He was actually starting to grow short of breath when, without warning, she slammed to a halt and he plowed right into her.

Tony staggered back a step and reflexively brought up his hands when she spun around to face him. This was _probably_ only going to be yelling, but in that instant he wasn't one hundred percent certain that she wouldn't—

"Do you think I'm not frightened?" Jean asked.

Sheer bafflement left him gaping.

"Do you think I'm not _furious_?" she continued, more heatedly, but Tony could sense that it wasn't directed at him. "Years of planning, years of work — gone. I had this. _I had this_. And now…"

She threw up her hands and reeled away from him, and Tony had never, not once, seen Jean so close to coming unglued. He was stunned into speechlessness.

She came to rest partially bent over with one hand on her thigh and the other braced against a tree, like she was worried she might topple over. "And now I'm fighting a war," she said, with a quaver in her tone. "Kel… her culture is so different. She tries to understand us, but some things simply don't translate. She forgets that we're not all soldiers."

Tony still couldn't assemble a response.

With an audible sigh and an obvious effort, Jean straightened up again. "I've been thinking a great deal recently about acceptable losses," she said. "Do you have a view?"

Finally, a question he could answer. "Unacceptable."

"I couldn't agree more. And yet that position may be a luxury I can't afford." Jean turned back to face him. "There are other options. Kel's plan, for instance: we all break out Rogers together, and then we run."

Her tone was neutral, but Tony could sense her doubts. "What do you make of our chances?"

"I think Wilson was right," Jean said. "Alisha and Aaron aren't prepared for the conditions. Eventually, one or both would become—" her voice caught "— _acceptable losses_. And even then, I'm not at all convinced that the rest of us could last ten months against the forces that the Nyth would bring to bear to hunt us down. A group that size is too difficult to hide, and takes too many resources to sustain. I think there's a good chance that we would lose a lot more, if not everyone.

"The other alternative," she continued, "is that we abandon the idea of rescuing Rogers."

Tony wasn't remotely ready to examine the tangle of pain and fear and anger in his chest that Rogers had left behind when he'd slammed down the edge of his shield that final time… but one thing he knew was that _he_ , Tony, hadn't done any of the walking away. The thought of starting now was abhorrent.

Of course, he wasn't getting into all of that with Jean. "They won't do it," he said instead. "You tell them no, they'll go anyway."

Her posture stiffened. "Yes," she said. "I know."

It took a second. Then realization hit like a hammer and sent him staggering back. "You were…" He could barely breathe through his rage. " _How_?"

"Kel would have sent advance warning to the Nyth, including their numbers, strengths and weaknesses," Jean said. "They would have walked into a trap."

It was Tony's turn to reel away. He couldn't… How _dare_ she…

"Murder five to save a hundred twenty?" he spat. "Are those your _acceptable losses_?"

"No, _none_ of this was acceptable!" she fired back. "But it was all I had! Do you understand? When the night began, _that_ was the choice — do I kill my friends, or yours? And I was trying not to think about it, because Romanoff strikes me as the type who can smell a threat coming, but God _help_ me, Tony…"

He turned back to her when he heard her voice break, in time to watch her crumple slowly to the ground with her face buried in her hands.

Tony didn't know what to do with _any_ of this — not the version of Jean who was unravelling before his eyes, and not the knowledge that she'd been gearing up to… to neutralize the Avengers.

Jean dried her eyes on her sleeve and drew in a shaky breath. "I said to you once that if you see something I miss, I want to know." She looked up at him. "What did I miss? Please tell me."

All he could do was shake his head. He didn't know. He didn't _fucking_ know. For all his supposed genius, he had no brilliant flashes of insight to offer her. No overlooked loopholes. No way out.

Tony sank down to the ground himself. "Why are you so convinced that they can't handle the mission on their own?" he asked.

Jean gestured around her at the patch of forest they were sitting in. "This place seems rather mundane, I realize, but we're behind barriers that ward off the more dangerous flora and fauna. Kel has taken me out past them a few times. There are some _very_ unpleasant surprises in the untamed parts of this world. And that doesn't include the various Nyth defense mechanisms. I think you've seen enough to know that their technology, while very different from ours, is not unsophisticated."

He granted the point with a flick of his fingers.

"Wilson and Barton might have experience in stealth operations, but as unenhanced humans, they're the most likely to be injured or killed on the trip. Maximoff, as I understand it, has little to no formal training, and Vision… lacks a certain subtlety."

Tony gave a huff of laughter in spite of himself.

"Kel depends heavily on her empathic sense to avoid predators and traps," Jean continued, "which doesn't translate well to human perception. I doubt that she could convey everything they would need to know for a successful infiltration. All it would take is one tripped alarm, and the mission fails." She shrugged. "Or rather, one tripped alarm and they would have to destroy the entire outpost instead, but that wouldn't go unnoticed for long. We'd all be back in the same position, but with only one or two months to prepare instead of five."

Tony gave a curt nod. It tracked. All of it tracked, except for the part that was happening right now.

"Unless this conversation ends with you snapping my neck — and I'm not altogether putting it past you — should I take it that Operation Backstab is no longer in play?"

"Of course it isn't," Jean said. "I would never have made you complicit."

"Thoughtful of you. So it's Romanoff's plan, then. You've decided."

"Yes."

"Then why the _fuck_ are you telling me all this?"

"Because your doubts frighten me," she said. "I want to save everyone, Tony. I am _desperate_ to save everyone. I think I see a way to do it. If the Avengers can buy me those first five months, then I promise you, I _swear_ to you that I can get us the rest of the way. I would not ask you to follow me into this war unless I believed that we would prevail. Are you so certain that I'm wrong?"

Tony sighed heavily and rubbed his forehead. "You and Kel, and the six of them, against an army," he said. "That's the part I can't get past."

"And you," Jean said gently. "Tony, you and your team are astonishing. You turned back the invasion of New York. You saved the world from Ultron. Is it really so hard to believe that you could do the same here?"

He flinched hard. "Not my team anymore. Maybe you noticed."

"All right, _my_ team, then."

Now _that_ startled a bark of laughter out of him. "Your team?" he asked. "Just like that?"

"Yes. There's been a coup."

It wasn't funny — nothing about this was funny — but Tony found himself with one hand covering his mouth while his shoulders shook. "You have a laudably ruthless leadership style," he told her once he'd gotten ahold of himself. "Not one minute ago, you were planning to—"

"Oh, don't exaggerate. It's been at least twenty minutes."

That _really_ wasn't funny, but they both laughed — the giddy, out-of-control sort of laughter that was just one step shy of a complete breakdown. Except Jean must have missed her step because she wasn't laughing so much as sobbing, and it turned out that certain extremes simply couldn't be borne.

"Yeah, okay, this doesn't work for me." Tony crossed to sit in front of her, and thumbed a tear off her cheek. "Seriously, my world is coming apart right now. You need to go back to being the quiet scary one, as soon as possible."

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm sorry I had to consider what I considered. I never thought…" She sniffed once more, then drew herself up straight. Tony could see her beginning the process of reassembling her self-control. "This is not a contingency I'd ever anticipated."

Not much he could say to that.

Jean took a slow look around her, like she was just noticing her surroundings. "It occurs to me," she said, "that this conversation may have gotten away from me a little."

"You think?"

Her mouth twisted wryly. "It's been a stressful day."

Yeah. For all of them.

"You really think you can pull this off."

"Yes," Jean said, and gathered up his hands in hers. "I can. God knows I don't want to, but I _can_. Is there anything I can do to bring you onboard?"

This confession of hers… yes, a large part of him was still _furious_ at her for entertaining the idea, not to mention sharing it with him. (Although that part could have been by way of sparing _him_ from having to say it. _What did I miss, Tony?_ _Well, you could always amputate the source of the problem. Acceptable losses_.) But now that the alternative had been voiced, it had become something of a safety net, albeit one made of barbed wire. Jean was ruthless enough to sacrifice the few to save the many. Choosing to risk them all on Romanoff's plan instead spoke to her belief in its success.

(Not that _her_ belief had ever been the issue.)

The task still felt impossible, but maybe part of the problem was that working with _them_ felt impossible. _Welcome to the team_ , Jean had told him once. _Her_ team, not the one that had turned on him. That was the offer — the last one she could make, because the acceptable loss on the table now was his support.

Tony was squeezing her hands too tightly, he knew, but she was squeezing right back, solid as a rock. "I actually can't wait for you to meet Rogers," he said. "I mean, I don't envy you having to fit _him_ into the team hierarchy, but at least it'll be a hell of a show."

Jean's smile was tentative. "I'll have to work up to it. Are you still on my team, Tony?"

"If you do this," he said slowly, "if you want to have any hope in hell of pulling this off, you're going to need weapons."

"Rather a lot of them, yes."

His hands were starting to ache, but he wasn't ready to let go just yet. "Turns out I've got some expertise in that field."

Her smile widened into something far more genuine. "I'd be glad to have it."

They stood up and dusted themselves off, after which she actually _hugged_ him, and it occurred to Tony that this was the most damned peculiar chewing-out he'd ever experienced. Once sufficient assurances had been exchanged, Jean led him at a much more civilized pace back to the meeting. By the time they arrived, she was the picture of self-possession again.

Stepping into the circle and facing everyone's scrutiny was… awful, but amazingly, no one commented. The two lines had broken up and everyone was on their feet and milling about, although Kel and Alisha still kept their distance from the newcomers.

"It's settled," Jean said simply. "We start tomorrow morning."

"If we all agree now," Kel said, "Can I ask a question about something else?"

The request clearly caught Jean by surprise. "Yes, all right," she said with evident curiosity.

"First, remind me, which one is four?"

Tony wasn't sure what she was trying to say until Alisha answered, "This one," and held up four fingers.

"Yes, I thought this." Kel turned to Natasha and frowned in apparent confusion. "You said a team of four that the Mjentur didn't see. More than one of you said this, I think."

As far as Tony could tell, Natasha genuinely didn't know what Kel was driving at. "Clint, Sam, Wanda, Vision," she said, ticking them off on her fingers.

Kel's frown deepened. "Strange. So none of you know? At first, I thought you only thought _I_ didn't know, but now I'm not sure."

"No, no one knows anything," Barton said, "including what the hell you're talking about. What don't we know?"

There was no circumstance so dire that it couldn't still get worse. Kel gave a vivid demonstration of that principle when she replied, "About the fourteen-year-old in the tree."

 


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I treasure every comment and kudo. Thanks so much, everyone!

Tony's guts turned to ice. _No. Nonono. Please no_. It was a different fourteen-year-old and a different tree and a different hellscape alternate dimension and—

From out of the gloom, a very young, very familiar voice that was _grounded until the next century_ called, "I'm fifteen."

"Not by much," Kel replied. "Come out here."

A pause. A thud. Then a figure came trotting out of the forest, his body language an odd mixture of sheepishness and defiance. It was Parker. He was dressed in the suit Tony had made for him, mask and all, with what looked like an Army surplus camo jacket over top. He looked ridiculous.

And he was _here_ , stranded with the rest of them on a hostile alien planet, and Tony had never felt this particular mixture of anger and terror before. He was underwater, watching this newest nightmare unfold in slow motion. Parker was hiding in a forest and sixty percent of him was _red and blue_ , for fuck's sake. He was going to— he was—

"Kid, what the hell part of 'Don't even think about going through that portal' did you not understand?"

Sam. Sam's voice. Tony imagined grabbing it like an anchor.

"I understood it fine," Parker replied. "I just didn't do it. Or, I guess, I _did_ do it, if you want to look at it that way." He turned toward Tony and gave a little wave. "Hey, Mr. Stark."

Kel, meanwhile, was studying Parker with narrowed eyes. "Impressive reflexes," she said. "Muscle density also."

"Thanks," said Parker. Then his head tilted quizzically. "Except I haven't… done anything?"

"Spider-Man is a teenager," Jean muttered. "Spectacular."

Kel shrugged. "Not so young to me. This must be one of your weird human things."

Sam leaned over toward Barton. "It's not just me, right? She freaking you out at all?"

"Little, maybe."

The side conversation bullshit had given Tony enough time to pull some oxygen back into his lungs. "You and me," he gritted, stabbing a finger in Parker's direction. "Private discussion. _Now_."

"Sure!" he chirped.

Tony stomped back off into the forest — this was turning into a theme — and the kid gamely followed behind him.

"This place is so weird!" Parker said once they stopped. "You should see some of the bugs they've got." He leaned in, and the eyes of the suit narrowed. "Hey, are you okay? That burn on your face looks like it really hurt."

"Didn't feel a thing," Tony said. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm—"

"No, actually, let me be more specific. Are you trying to kill me?"

"What? No!"

"You sure? This wasn't your supervillain master plan the whole time? Because I gotta tell you, kid, I am about _this_ close to dropping dead of a goddamn _heart attack_! _Why are you here_?"

Parker crossed his arms, and the tilt of his head took on some serious attitude. "Because hardly any of them were on your side!" he said. "Even the Bl— the— Ms. Widow, even she went over to Captain America's side at the end, didn't she? I saw it on Twitter, that she got put on a wanted list. I mean, that was why you brought me to Germany, wasn't it? Because you needed help?"

And there it was. Tony's fault. He'd done this. He'd known it from the first second that Parker had appeared, but the words still carved through him like a knife to the chest.

Yes, he'd brought Spider-Man to Germany. He'd needed someone who had the capacity to make Rogers _sit still and listen_ for ten seconds. By some fantastic feat of self-delusion, he'd managed to convince himself that the confrontation wouldn't _actually_ turn into all-out combat. That there were still some lines left that Rogers wouldn't cross, even for Barnes' sake.

More fool him. In so many ways.

"Mr. Stark?" Parker said cautiously. He inched a little closer, his eyes gone wide with concern.

"Do you even know how long you're stuck here?" Tony asked.

"Ten months, yeah, I heard about that."

"Out of morbid curiosity, what exactly did you tell Au—"

Parker flailed his hands in a frantic shushing motion. "I told _some people_ that I was going to an overnight event for new September Foundation grant holders." His head turned away sheepishly. "I might have maybe put up a website."

"And _what_ ," Tony bit out, "do you plan on saying to _some people_ when you come back from your sleepover looking _ten months older_?"

"Um." Oh look, a consequence he hadn't anticipated. "Well," he offered weakly, "teenagers, you know, I hear they can have growth spurts practically overnight."

"Actually, that one is already about as tall as he'll ever be," Kel called.

"Hey!" Parker protested.

"Private discussion!" Tony added sharply, and dragged the both of them a few steps further back beneath the trees.

Okay. Damage control. It was all he had left. This was his fault and he couldn't fix it, but if it killed him, he would at least get the boy back to his family in one piece.

"Mr. Stark, I don't understand why—"

"No," Tony snapped. " _No_. You're done talking. The only thing you are going to do now is climb a very tall tree and spin yourself a cozy little cocoon—"

"That's _caterpillars_."

"—and _stay_ there, out of sight, out of danger, out of the way, completely and entirely _out_. Understood?"

"You know, it's actually really rude to out someone without their—"

" _Don't you dare treat this like a joke!_ "

Peter jerked back sharply, and… aw _fuck_ , Tony was almost positive he heard a sniffle, because clearly he wasn't enough of a monster already.

"I'm sorry, kid," he said quietly, as the knife in his chest twisted even deeper. Echoes of… of being the one who'd been snapped at reverberated through his skull. When it came to being an asshole, he'd learned from the _fucking_ best. Fixing it was still largely uncharted territory. "I didn't mean to… I'm sorry I yelled. All right? I just never wanted to see you in this kind of danger."

Peter had his arms crossed defensively and his face turned away ( _echoes, echoes_ ). "So you're allowed to feel that way, and I'm not?"

_Dammit_. "It's not your job to jump into danger after _me_ ," Tony said, desperation dripping off every word.

Parker shrugged, still avoiding Tony's eyes. "Whatever. You're mad. I get it. Can we go back to the meeting now?"

Tony's head sagged in defeat. "Yeah. Sure."

This was the second time Tony'd had to reenter the training ring after storming out of it. The stares were even worse this time around. Parker immediately crossed to the opposite side of the circle and conspicuously refused to look in Tony's direction.

"So what are we supposed to call you?" Alisha asked Parker.

"I'm Spider-Man," the kid said.

"I'll bet you a hundred dollars it doesn't say 'Spider-Man' on your birth certificate."

He huffed in annoyance. "It's called a secret identity, okay?"

"So you're going to keep that mask on for the next ten months."

"It actually breathes really well," Parker said, which Tony knew to be true.

"Uh-huh," Alisha said. "And were you planning to do laundry at any point?"

"Alisha, leave it be," Jean said mildly.

"You don't think this is ridiculous?"

"Of course I do. But it's—" her voice carried only a hint of a groan "—Spider-Man's prerogative to protect his identity if he so chooses."

Parker's head tilted curiously as he took his first real look at Jean. "So you're like in charge or something?"

"Oh, I am very much in charge, yes," Jean said, "and if you think you can play in this league, you'll have to prove to me that you can follow instructions."

Jean was the last person Tony would have expected to come out with that kind of nonsense. "Are you kidding me?" he snapped. "He's _fifteen_! There's _no_ playing, _no_ league, _no_ —"

"For pity's sake, Tony, I'm not taking a teenager into a war zone," she said. "However, we have a very short amount of time in which to construct a second camp and set up rudimentary agriculture, all from scratch. I am not above asking him to wield an axe, or a shovel. Can you live with that?"

_Living_ was looking less and less like a viable option every second. "If you… if he so much as _smells_ a swordfight…"

"I'm standing right here, you know," Parker snarked.

But now Natasha had Parker in her sights. "You're not wearing a watch," she said.

Tony's attention abruptly shifted focus. "She's right," he said. "And I happen to know that you have an excellent watch, because I made it for you."

"Well, exactly — that's why I didn't bring it, because it was from you and I didn't want it to get lost or something."

He was lying, and he was doing it badly.

"What kind of survival gear did you bring?" Natasha continued. "Food and water?"

"Yeah," said Parker. "I brought water, and a bunch of sandwiches."

(He brought sandwiches. Tony was in hell.)

"A sleeping bag?"

"Yep, I borrowed one from— I have that."

"A knife?"

"Uh-huh."

"A flashlight?"

Parker stammered, "Uh— no, I don't… I don't have one."

"How come?"

"I forgot?"

"Really? Or did you know in advance that you couldn't bring anything that runs on batteries?"

"Peter," Jean muttered darkly.

Parker's head turned quickly. "What?"

There was a beat while everyone took that in.

"I mean— _what_!" Parker exclaimed. "Who's… I don't— I don't know that guy. I don't know anyone named— I didn't even hear you properly, that's why I said 'what', that's—"

Natasha was smiling openly. "Oh, you're _delightfully_ bad at this," she said.

"I was referring," Jean said dryly, "to a friend of mine named Peter, who seems bound and determined to send me the Avengers and their various auxiliaries one piece at a time, in spite of my express instructions otherwise."

Tony knew that he couldn't escape the blame for this mess, but he was more than happy to spread it around. "You think one of yours had a hand in this?" he demanded.

"I think there's a very good chance," Jean said, "although I'm going to make a leap of faith and assume that Peter — my Peter — didn't know that he was speaking with a teenager."

" _Still_ standing right here!"

Barton said, "None of us need reminding, kid. That's the problem."

"Yeah, well, maybe if _you_ hadn't all gone rogue in the first place, _I_ wouldn't've needed to come!"

"' _Gone rogue_ '? He got you indoctrinated good, didn't he?"

Tony sure as hell wasn't going to let that one lie, but Jean just barely beat him to it, stepping out between Peter and Barton with her hands raised in warning. "This is getting us nowhere," she said firmly.

Barton subsided under her glare, after which she shot Tony a warning look for good measure. Then she crossed to stand in front of Peter.

"May I?" she inquired, and picked up one of his hands.

She turned it over to look at the webslinger on the inside of his wrist (all Peter's tech; Tony'd just polished up the housing a little). Peter shifted awkwardly in place, but he didn't try to dodge, and Jean didn't end up with a face full of webbing.

"Interesting," she murmured, and let him go. "You're right: you are here, and I'm as guilty as anyone of being unkind about it. I apologize. That ends now," she said, firing a stern look over her shoulder. "What I need you to recognize, Peter, is that we are all trapped in this place together, and the actions of each one of us affect the entire group. If you want to help, there will be opportunities for you to do so, but I need to be able to trust that everyone here is focused on the safety of the camp and not their own agenda. Do you understand that?"

Tony could tell from the way Peter's head ducked that he was somewhat abashed. But he still put some resentment into his tone when he asked, "So you expect me to spend the next ten months, what, chopping firewood and staying out of everyone's way while the rest of you do all the fighting?"

"I expect _all_ of us to do whatever is required to keep a hundred twenty people housed, fed, and secure," Jean said. "And if you think I won't be chopping firewood right alongside you, well, you're quite mistaken."

Peter didn't have an immediate comeback.

Jean was good at that. She sounded so _reasonable_ when she talked. Nevermind that they'd left 'reasonable' about three state lines back when Peter had _thrown himself through the fucking portal_.

Tony needed… he had no idea. More space, or some time to catch his breath, or for this fucking nightmare to end already. But instead he turned away and there was Barton, standing with folded arms and a snide expression. The fight was coming — Tony could see it unfolding before his eyes, beat for beat — and there was not a damned thing he could do to stop it.

"Gee," Barton drawled, "it's almost like taking a child into a combat situation can screw with their judgment. Who'd've thought?"

"Oh, all of a sudden you're acquainted with the notion of consequences?" Tony shot back. "Funny how that didn't seem to apply to international law."

"Go ahead, tell me some more about consequences, Stark. Let's start with the consequences of hopping in bed with Thaddeus fuckin' Ross!"

"I've been meaning to ask, how's Laura taking to life as a single parent?"

He saw the punch coming. He _had_ the punch coming. But reflexes kicked in and his elbow came up to block, his weight shifting to absorb the blow and set up for a counter—

Setting up was as far as he got. A dark blur crossed his vision as an expertly placed kick took his legs out from under him. He went down like a sack of hammers, and recovered just in time to see Jean take Barton down, his arm trapped behind his back and her thumb pressed up hard against his carotid.

She pinned him just long enough to make her point, then dropped him and took a step back.

"Thanks for saving me the trouble," Natasha said. She sounded thoroughly bored, which was how Tony knew that she'd been taken by surprise.

Jean loomed. She'd been born for it. "Whatever may have happened between you back on Earth, I truly don't care," she said. "We are about to ask the entire camp to entrust us with their defense and their lives, and I will _not_ have you eroding that trust by brawling in public. Is that clear?"

Tony put up his hands in mock surrender (…mostly mock).

Barton looked surprisingly chill about the fact that he'd just been dumped on his ass. "Who trained you, anyway?" he asked her.

"A variety of people," Jean said. "Do we have an understanding?"

"Yeah, yeah, roger wilco, no need to choke me out twice."

"Good." She leaned over and extended her hand, and Barton let her pull him to his feet.

Tony had some thoughts about that, some of them also concerning the subject of _teams_ and being _on them_ , but before he could form them into a coherent complaint, a different hand was thrust into his line of sight — Kel's. He grabbed on and was hauled upright.

Kel caught Jean's eye and trilled something in her native tongue.

" _Sh'sha_ ," Jean replied.

Tony looked between them. "I'm guessing that wasn't a compliment."

"It was not," Jean confirmed, and dismissed him in favor of Barton. "You're the archer, correct? That's good — we're light on ranged weapons. How does your supply of ammunition stack up against the prospect of a war?"

"Not great, but I can make more of whatever I need."

"Good. If you need information about the local materials, I recommend the Oregon Six. They were heavily involved in the construction of the original camp."

"Cool," Barton said. "You know, the next time you and I have some time to kill—"

"I wouldn't miss it." She turned smoothly from him back to Tony. "This is not the turn of events I would have chosen, but we're all rolling with the punches tonight. Peter is here, which means that he's under my protection. If nothing else, I hope that you can trust me to take that responsibility as seriously as you do."

To the list of things he wanted and couldn't have, Tony added a pair of sunglasses so that he could shield himself when Jean set her sincerity to high-beam.

Panic was still tight across his lungs. He had almost — _almost_ — come to grips with the idea of helping Jean to take on an army, but everything was different now. He wanted (irrationally, pointlessly) to hear her _promise_ that she would keep the kid out of danger and get him back home alive, whatever it took. But of course she couldn't make any such promises, and they both knew it.

Which meant that Jean was also reduced to running damage control. The show of solidarity was nice and all, but it wasn't tough to guess that what she really wanted was for him to stop picking fights and disrupting her strategy meeting. It didn't matter what he said now, so long as he shut up afterward. So, for the sake of expediency, he lied.

"Message received," Tony said. "I'm fine."

"I'm glad. Now," Jean announced, turning slowly in place to scrutinize the entire assembly, "is there anything else that anyone feels the need to yell about?"

There were no takers.

"Wonderful." Jean's attention settled on Natasha. "Is there anything further that you or your people need to have addressed tonight?"

"I was about to ask you that," Natasha replied. "If you're going to take the camp tomorrow, what kind of support do you need from us?"

"Hardly any," said Jean. "All the major elements have been in place for some time now. I'd like to position your people on the perimeter to the north and east. If we have containment problems, those are the most likely locations."

"Of course," said Natasha. She took her own look around the rest of the group. "Anything else?"

"Here's something no one's mentioned yet," Barton said. "I take it this place is a mine? If we're gonna pull this off, then it has to stay open."

"That's true," said Natasha, "but maybe we can slow it down. There have to be plausible reasons for a decrease in production."

Jean stepped back and to the side, in Tony's direction, lining herself up beside him in an obvious invitation for the rest of the group to join the circle. Her hand came to rest on the center of his back for a long and disconcerting moment.

"About a year ago, the vein hit a fault," she said to Natasha at the same time. "It took us almost a month of digging through the local equivalent of granite before we picked it up again."

"Maybe there was a bad batch of the additives they use to refine the raw ore," Alisha suggested, taking her place on Tony's other side. "That would delay the processing step."

Sam likewise fell into formation next to Barton. "A cave-in sounds traditional," he said.

Everyone else joined in and closed the loop. (Parker placed himself as far away as possible from Tony, and still refused to look at him.)

"Good," said Natasha. "We decrease output as much as we can to free up personnel for other jobs."

"Everyone not off-site on a mission takes shifts in the mine," Jean added. "No special treatment."

"Agreed," said Barton.

Vision said, "For the initial five months, perhaps my… durability is best put to use in the mining operation. I suspect that I can cover far more shifts than the average human."

"That would be very helpful," said Jean. "We'll have an easier time selling this to the rest of the camp if we can offer a reduced workload."

"Do you foresee any problems on that front?" Natasha asked her.

"Not for the initial assault. In truth, it's been more and more difficult to keep everyone in check. I'm sure there will be some complaints about my unilaterally rewriting the final ten months of our plan, but I can manage those."

Kel said, "I have another question."

Jean pinched the bridge of her nose. "Kel, If there are any more people in trees, can we please have them all at once instead of one at a time?"

She smiled. "No, there was only one. I wanted to know if we need to leave a small number of Mjentur alive for the— for Wanda to practice on, or as a backup if the illusion doesn't work."

There was a general intake of breath around the circle as the others acknowledged her point.

"The plan wasn't designed to leave survivors," said Jean. "It can be arranged, if need be, but you're right, we should decide now."

"Um," Alisha said. "Hey… Wanda? If you think it would help, I could, um… Because I've been around Mjentur minds for almost two years now, we could try to share impressions, you know? I'm not that great at projecting — I could never implant a whole scene like you were talking about — but at least I can show you… how they're put together. I've got a pretty good idea of it. If you want." She shot a defensive glare around the circle. "I'm a telepath."

Tony turned to stare, and he wasn't the only one.

"And again, information that could have probably come up a little sooner," Sam said.

"I'm also a chemical engineer, an American citizen of Afro-Caribbean descent, a pretty damn good flautist, sister to three siblings, and in a long-term relationship," Alisha retorted. "But sure, the telepath part is the one I left out."

Sam held up his hands quickly. "Sorry. No offense."

Natasha was looking at Jean. "You have powerful friends," she said.

"I have friends of good character," Jean countered.

"Of course."

"Yes, that would help," Wanda said to Alisha, "and so would having a few of them to practice on. The more I can see of their minds, the easier this will be."

"For that matter," Alisha added, "if we're looking for a quick proof of concept, couldn't we grab a couple of sentries tonight? Wanda can try her thing, and if it doesn't work, I can just blank out a few minutes' worth of their memories. I've done it before."

Jean glanced at Kel for confirmation, like she always did, then said, "It's worth a try, if both of you are willing."

"What should I make them see?" Wanda asked.

"The night guards are to keep animals out, more than to keep prisoners in," Kel said. "There are… scavengers? Is this the word? Not so large, not dangerous to us, but they steal food and make a mess. Some got in, the guards killed them, dragged away the bodies. Can you do this?"

"I think so," she said, "if we're not interrupted."

"There are two places on the perimeter where one pair loses line of sight with all the others," Kel said. "I'll take you there."

"Sloppy," Barton noted.

"Yes," said Kel. "The garrison won't be."

"Anything else?" Natasha asked again. When no one answered, she said, "While we're all here, I had a thought about staging Steve's escape." She turned to Kel. "Earlier, you said something about predators. What's the nastiest one in the area?"

Kel pursed her lips pensively. "The outpost sits on… a flat piece. It has a word."

She switched to sign for a moment, and Jean supplied, "A plateau."

"Plateau," Kel repeated. "Near to a river, which falls over the edge. Near the buildings, the forest has been cleared. Very little that would attack. But after the fall, the river follows a valley. More water in the air, and taller trees. This is kethysh territory. The most dangerous predator on this world. Usually they don't climb out of the valley, and even if they do, the Nyth set a perimeter that repels them." She shrugged. "Still. It's not impossible to find them this high."

"Sounds like fun," Barton said. "What's a kethysh?"

"It is like…" Kel frowned at Jean. "The picture you showed me — what was it called?"

"A leopard," said Jean.

"I think it's more like a jaguar," said Alisha.

"The markings and the body shape—"

"The habitat and the hunting patterns—"

"Okay!" Sam said. "It's a big cat. We got it."

"No," Jean said. "I'm afraid you don't. Kel, how big do kethyshi get?"

Kel's hand started out around waist height, which was reasonable. Then it drifted upward until she was reaching over her head, which was bad. Then she said, "Four of these, at the shoulder."

Jaws dropped.

"You have _twenty-four-foot leopards_ in your woods?" Sam yelped.

"Jaguars," Alisha said.

"That's _not_ — okay, out of curiosity, what's the second-nastiest predator in the area?"

Natasha said, "I'm guessing that if a prisoner were accidentally eaten by a rogue kethysh, there wouldn't be a whole lot of evidence left."

"Very little," Kel said.

"I'm also guessing that no human would ever dare use one of them as a diversion in a rescue operation."

"That seems… not likely, no."

"Just to make sure I have this," Barton said, "we lure a twenty-four-foot jaguar—"

"Leopard," Jean said.

"—out of its territory and into an enemy encampment, make it look like it ate Cap, make sure it _doesn't_ eat Cap, make sure it doesn't eat _us_ , and sneak back out without being spotted." He whistled. "Your plans are on fire today, Nat."

She gave a mild shrug. "It's a starting point."

Kel, meanwhile, was watching Jean closely. "You know you can't go," she said.

"I know."

"You have to stay at the camp and be in charge."

"I know." Jean's sigh was wistful. "But I admit I was hoping to see one."

"Then I think I described it wrong."

Natasha asked her, "How do you know so much about them?"

Tony recognized her tone: the question had hidden teeth.

"Like many things here, the Nyth built and sold kethyshi as weapons," Kel said. If she sensed anything unusual from Natasha, she wasn't reacting to it. "There are some still left on j'Brenn, from wars centuries ago. We can't get rid of them. We can contain them, mostly."

"You also know a lot about the terrain near the outpost," Natasha said. "Have you been there before?"

"Yes," Kel said. "Before the Nyth decided to let me work here, they wanted to know why I came and what I could do for them. This is also why I know the garrison: they took me there first, the research outpost later."

Natasha nodded and let the subject drop, at least for the moment. Tony couldn't shake the impression that she thought Kel was lying about something, although he was at a loss as to what. The idea that Kel had been vetted in some way seemed reasonable to him — considerably more so than if she'd claimed to have been offered a job the second she'd stepped through the portal.

Jean said to Natasha, "You know your people best. I'll defer to your judgment on the composition of the extraction team. My only stipulation is that Kel accompany them."

"That one I'm not sure about," Kel said with a gesture toward Vision, "but everyone with a human body has to go through the infirmary before you leave."

"Yes, good point," Jean said. "This environment inflicts certain long-term health risks that need to be countered. You can leave tomorrow as soon as we've secured the camp and your team has been treated."

"Understood," Natasha said. "When will you make your move?"

Jean gave a tight, wolfish smile. "Shortly after they hand out the pickaxes."

 

* * *

 

Tony fluttered and fussed over Peter to the point where Natasha started to wonder if he was going to build the boy a treehouse and carry him up there personally. And then, of course, lock him inside. She understood the impulse, but knew that it wasn't going to either imbue Peter with better judgment or assuage Tony's obvious guilt for having been the motivating force behind this development. Peter, for his part, was clearly upset that his grand gesture wasn't being taken in the spirit it had been intended, and had retreated into sullen silence.

That situation bore careful monitoring, to say the least.

It took a few more quiet words from Jean before Tony could be persuaded to back down a little (and _there_ was an interesting dynamic). Clint, Sam, and Vision agreed to take Peter back to their campsite, while Wanda remained with the group that had to return to the prison camp. Once they were within view of the perimeter, Tony and Jean had another quiet conversation — partly in whispered words and partly in ASL, which was a new development on Tony's part — the outcome of which was that Jean escorted Tony back to the barracks, then rejoined the rest of the women for the night's final chore.

Kel led the way around the camp, keeping close to the perimeter but still under the cover of the trees. She moved through the forest like she'd been trained for it her whole life. Not unlike how she handled herself in a fistfight, for that matter.

Natasha had recognized Kel on sight, of course. She'd also accepted that Kel was going to do whatever it took to maintain her cover; under the same circumstances, Natasha would have done no less.

Then Steve had screamed.

It had been clear that she and Steve were both being goaded, but in that moment, it hadn't mattered. Natasha'd had no objective beyond buying Steve a few moments to recover, but she'd dived in anyway — and swiftly found herself on the defensive. It had been… disconcerting.

The whisper had come when she and Kel had been locked close in a grappling hold: "Tell the archer in the tree to hold fire _._ "

Natasha could have broken the hold — and given how skilled Kel was, that had to have been deliberate — but in a split-second decision, she'd let Kel take her balance and throw her. Clint had gotten the message, and _listened_ to the message, and subsequent events had unfolded in the inevitable manner.

The experience had left her with a strong desire to learn everything there was to know about Kel, her capabilities, and her history. There was something about her… Natasha couldn't even articulate the problem, but some combination of the way Kel acted and the things she knew didn't quite add up. Luckily, Natasha had the next ten months to work it out.

The mine was located just to the north of the camp. Although Natasha hadn't been given a work assignment yet, Jean was confident that she would be sent to the mine with the majority of the prisoners the next morning.

"Approximately half of the camp staff will be down in the cave with us," Jean said. "They'll be eliminated with an airborne toxin from which the prisoners will be protected. Another four Mjentur remain aboveground to guard the cavern entrance. Kel and I had planned to kill them, but if the test tonight goes badly, they'll be the ones whom we disable but leave alive. In either event, may I assume that you want a role in that piece of the operation?"

"You may," Natasha replied.

Nearby was one of the blind spots on the perimeter that Kel had mentioned. There were four pairs of sentries walking lazy circles around the camp. As one pair passed behind a long, low building, they had no sight lines to any of the others for over a minute.

Kel showed them all the location, then backed them off into the woods again.

"Take whatever time you need to prepare," Jean said. "This only makes sense if it's done properly."

Wanda and Alisha faced each other. Carefully, respectfully, each one reached out a hand toward the other's temple. Their eyes closed in synchronization, and they settled into a trance.

Natasha stole a quick look at Jean. Her expression was almost perfectly neutral, but there was a hint of calculation about the eyes that Natasha recognized instantly. She was assessing — or possibly reassessing — what, if anything, she could do if Wanda ever became a threat. Natasha understood the impulse: Jean was responsible for the safety of her team, and she believed in preparing for contingencies.

Of course, the answer to the question was 'nothing'. In this environment, with only rudimentary weapons, Wanda and her powers outclassed them all.

Several minutes passed. Then the two telepaths broke their connection as smoothly as they'd entered it. Without a word, Wanda turned and seemed to flow back toward the camp perimeter. The rest followed at a cautious distance.

A pair of sentries had entered the dead zone just before Wanda arrived. She stepped out behind them, silent as a ghost. Tendrils of magic flowed from her fingers. Delicate and sinuous, they wove their way into the two guards' minds. Both aliens staggered to a halt, and their eyes flashed red.

Natasha found it difficult to watch. When it had been _her_ mind that had been invaded by Wanda's magic, long-dormant memories of the Red Room had—

No… not just memories. The specifics of the incident had only served as a passageway for the the panic and horror that had come flooding back to her. Long-healed emotional scars suddenly laid bare and sliced raw. On the scale of invasions she'd experienced, that one had been… near to the top.

There was no question that Tony had been churlish through the entire meeting, and a lot of what he'd said was best ignored. However, she privately echoed his concern that Wanda's approach could prove too heavy-handed for their purposes.

After delivering her magic, Wanda drifted back into the shadows, and Natasha lost sight of her.

Alisha was crouched in the undergrowth close to the perimeter, staring hard at the Mjentur. "It works," she told the rest of them in sign. "They see the story."

The Mjentur stood frozen for no more than twenty seconds, although subjectively it seemed much longer. They emerged from their fugue simultaneously, and there was a moment of disorientation. They looked at each other, traded some brief remarks in their alien language, then resumed their patrol.

Natasha's group stayed silent and still until the guards were long past, then cautiously withdrew to a distance where it was safe to whisper. Wanda joined them en route. She still moved lightly, but the ethereal quality had faded.

Jean asked Kel, "Did you catch what they said?"

Kel's initial response was in her own language, but then she found her way back to English. "A curse, and something about… about small things that annoy," she said. "I will hear the reports from the night guards tomorrow morning. By procedure, they should say what they did, and this will confirm it. But I think it worked. They don't feel worried or angry."

"I agree," Alisha said. "I could see the memory in their minds as it was forming." She glanced at Wanda with obvious respect. "You've got a lot of power pent up in there."

"The supply shipment is accompanied by a team of five," Jean said. "Can you handle that many simultaneously?"

"If the two of us work together?" Wanda said, indicating Alisha. "Yes, I think so."

"Alisha?"

She wasn't quite as confident, but she nodded.

"Is there anything to be gained by keeping a small number of Mjentur alive tomorrow?" Jean asked.

Wanda and Alisha silently conferred.

"No," Wanda decided. "There's nothing else I could learn that would make the job any easier. Unless you hear about a problem tomorrow," she added to Kel.

"If I do," said Kel, "I think nothing changes for the outside team, and I can tell Jean before the work shift starts."

"Then unless I hear otherwise, I'll assume that we are proceeding with the original plan," said Jean. "Wanda, shortly after sunrise tomorrow, I'd like your team to be in position under cover behind the mine, and near to the east road. Can you lead them back here?"

"Yes, of course."

"Good. Circle the camp to the west, the way we did. The terrain is easier."

Alisha exhaled slowly. "We're really doing this?" she asked.

Jean's use of touch was studied and deliberate. Natasha had seen her lay a hand on someone else four times that night, and each one had been for a very specific purpose. The same held true now when she reached out to clasp Alisha by the forearm.

"We're really doing this," Jean said. "All of us, together. And we're going to win."

 


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for a protracted anxiety attack including signifcant respiratory distress, and references to past torture.

Tony wasn't fine.

This was the traditional moment for someone to ask. _Hey, there, I've noticed that you seem to be actively dying. You okay, buddy?_

_Sure, no problem. I'm fine._

But this time he really wasn't.

Jean had, as previously noted, maintained strict control over the stimulant strips. She doled them out, and at the end of each night's excursion, she took them back for safe disposal. Only this time she'd forgotten.

Tony knew that he should have taken it off as soon as he'd gotten back to his cot, hidden it somewhere, and gone to sleep like a good little insurgent. But sleeping meant that the next day would start, which meant that the _war_ would start, and he just… he couldn't. He couldn't. So he'd left it on.

And now he couldn't breathe.

He'd been on the verge of a panic attack from the moment he'd seen Parker come walking out of the trees. Of all the… the _cataclysmic fuck-ups_ he'd committed—

If the boy got hurt or killed because of him—

Tony's fault. All of it. And he couldn't fix it. Trapped and he couldn't fix it, and now the fear had clamped down on his lungs like a vise.

There was no air. _There was no air_. Every breath was a struggle against crushing, unyielding pressure. He fought back against it, forcing his lungs open, clawing in just enough oxygen to keep himself conscious. Then it was gone, and he had to do it again. And again. And again.

(Like the arc reactor had been: a constant weight on his chest. When it had been removed, oh, the sudden freedom to breathe… for a while.)

(Taking it out had been supposed to fix a lot of things, and hadn't actually fixed any.)

Tony had experienced quite a few instances of feeling like he was about to die and _really_ being about to die in his storied career, and this time… this time he might have seriously fucked himself up. Panic attacks were a known phenomenon, but now he'd somehow gotten stuck in the lead-up, where the actual moment of crippling terror was still lurking in his periphery but he knew it was coming because of the iron band across his chest. This had never happened before. Something was wrong. (Compare palladium poisoning. Even when the nausea and headaches and crushing fatigue had been under control, he'd _felt_ something seriously wrong, every waking moment.)

Obvious solution: take off the strip. Except the only thing he could imagine that would be worse than having to fight for each breath would be _losing_ that fight as he slowly passed out. (Compare a dead suit drifting through the vacuum.)

The room was far too hot, and Tony was freezing. (Some fucking thermodynamics violations going on there.) One minute he was scrubbing his sweaty palms against his thighs, and the next he was shivering so hard it was almost a seizure. He'd kicked the blanket to the ground a while back. Mustering the energy to retrieve it was out of the question. He wrapped his arms around himself and tried to stop shaking, and all the while, every second he had to struggle for air.

Dying and getting it over with would have come as something of a relief.

He had no idea how long it went on. He tried counting breaths, but as the numbers climbed, they seemed to add to the weight. It went on long enough that he started to wonder if he'd ever been able to breathe properly in his life, or if the idea was nothing more than a desperate dream.

After what felt like a lifetime, the door to the dorm opened. It was Kel.

She carried a lamp in her hand that cast just enough deep red light to show her face and torso, leaving her legs in the dark and making her seem to glide like a ghost. Once she was at his side, she lifted the lamp up to her chest, drew in an exaggerated breath, then held up one finger and arched her eyebrows quizzically.

Tony nodded.

Kel crouched beside him and rested the stump of her arm against the back of his wrist. Just for a moment, there was no discomfort at all, only floating numbness and blessed air, and his body sucked in oxygen greedily.

But then she stepped back, and the momentary relief was gone. The pressure was bearing down on him again, the panic like a trap ready to spring.

Kel's hand passed through his field of vision, and she made a beckoning gesture that brooked no dissent.

Because obviously the best treatment for this protracted incipient hyperventilation shit was a lengthy hike across the fucking camp.

She threaded her way effortlessly through the usual night patrols, while Tony clung to her side like a barnacle with a breathing problem. He thought at first that they were headed for the infirmary — not the worst idea, all things considered — but at the last minute Kel steered them toward the little building behind it that Tony had always assumed was a supply shed.

Instead, it turned out to be Kel's bedroom.

The open night sky had given him a marginal amount of relief, but being back under a roof again left him right back where he'd started. His legs buckled as soon as he crossed the threshold, and it was a good thing that the room was so tiny because Kel only had to haul him half a step further before he could collapse on her cot. He sank down, head bowed to his knees and hands clasped behind his neck because fuck dignity at this point, and he was shaking with cold and sweating with heat and there was still _not enough air_.

He felt her arm beneath his knees, and then the world spun in a nasty way until he was lying down on his side, curled up into a miserable, asphyxiating ball. The cot creaked and the mattress dipped, which brought his stomach in on the fun with a warning lurch.

_Stop_ , he wanted to say. _Please stop. Make it stop. Make all of it stop_.

She didn't make it stop. But she did reach over to press her hand to his back: firm pressure between his shoulder blades, which turned into broad circles in a slow, regular rhythm.

Not enough. A drop of water in the desert. Every breath was a battle, frantic, panicked, and he trembled from the chill that had crept into his bones. She could have fixed it, she'd proven that already, so why, _why_ was she making him—

"Tony," Kel whispered. "It will pass. I promise you."

A sound came out of his throat like a sob and a moan at once, pathetic and desperate.

"You're safe. It will pass. Breathe with me."

Her hand kept moving in slow circles across his back, while she carefully inched her way closer. She was warm, so warm, and Tony found himself clutching her about the middle with his face mashed into her chest. He dug in like a tree root after water, and a bit of her warmth began to seep its way through his skin. The steady rhythm of her breathing rocked him back and forth, just a little, and she slowed the movement of her hand to match.

"Breathe with me."

He tried.

She made it sound easy. It wasn't.

But he tried.

Ignore the part where he was still pretty sure he was going to die.

Ignore the part where, if he _didn't_ die, he was going to have to look Kel in the face and come up with some kind of explanation for what the _fuck_ —

No. Ignore all that. Just… sync the system clock to the external signal. Simple timing problem. Fix the clock.

He could do that.

It took a lot of clock cycles. But the external signal stayed strong. Sync the clock. That was all he had to do.

"Good job," she murmured into his hair the first time his ragged inhalation more or less kept pace with hers, and for some reason that was the moment that he started weeping like an infant.

Some critical internal component snapped and it all came crashing down. The Accords, and feeling the consequences looming over them all, and _there's only one way this ends if we don't get in front of it now, why can't they see it—_

and watching Rogers and his people ( _his people_ ) falling into line against him at Leipzig, too far gone to listen anymore, and the fight was coming, there was nothing he could do and _they're all going to die because you couldn't stop it your fault—_

and

_trajectory and wind resistance and thruster power and he didn't have the power he couldn't make it no not Rhodes please I can't lose you too—_

and

_a hand reaching through a broken car window and the tape had no audio but he could still hear the sounds his mother must have made as she was choked to death she'd been murdered she'd been stolen kill him KILL HIM—_

and

_sudden touch of cold air as the faceplate was ripped away and the rage on Rogers' face as the shield swung down—_

"It's over, Tony. You're safe. Come back to me."

The crushing blow of the shield became the howling agony of the club, became the sick feeling of broken bone and the _wrongness_ of the way his jaw hung at an angle from his face _stop_ —

"I'm here. You're not alone. I've got you."

His body jerked from a blow of the whip and the muscles in his jaw clenched up tight against the scream that threatened, _be still be still don't move don't—_

"You're safe. I promise, Tony. Come back to me."

The words kept going, quiet and gentle but also persistent. There was a solidness to them. A continuity. Something Tony could grab onto. Little by little, the steady rhythm of her voice drifted to the foreground, and the memories began to fade away.

Tony took a breath, and discovered that this was something he was capable of doing again. He wasn't shivering anymore, either. His eyes and throat were sore and dry from the crying jag; his face was sopping wet, likewise. He opened his eyes, and rediscovered his surroundings: a narrow cot, a small dark room, and Kel.

The two of them were wrapped tightly in each other's arms. His face was buried in her cleavage, and her ankle was hooked over his calf. It wasn't erotic in the slightest — if nothing else, the snot made sure of that — but it was… profoundly intimate.

Her fingers skimmed through his hair. "I will get cloths," she murmured, "and then come back."

Her brilliant idea for how to do that was to roll them both so that Tony was on his back, then to turn sideways and scramble over top of him until she was half-hanging off the cot, because apparently their original position hadn't been compromising enough. Rustling ensued as she fished around on the floor. Miraculously, she didn't elbow him anywhere critical on the way back.

Kel returned with a generous handful of the sheets that she used in the infirmary like paper towels, that reminded Tony of seaweed. She settled down beside him again, shifting to sit cross-legged with her back against the wall, and dropped the sheets on the bed between them. She kept one for herself to mop off the front of her shirt.

Tony sat up as well. The sheets were clammy, which he would not have thought conducive to the purpose, but somehow they were also incredibly absorbent. Kel tossed hers to the floor when she was done with it, and… well, her bedroom, her rules. After considerably more mopping up than she'd required, Tony followed suit.

All that was left was to figure out what the fuck he was supposed to do now.

Kel, for her part, was acting like the situation was wholly unremarkable. Frankly, it was freaking him out a little. Usually talking would have been his first line of defense, but there was no scenario Tony could imagine where talking wouldn't lead to Talking About It, and maybe some version of that conversation was inevitable, but he sure as hell wasn't going to be the one to initiate.

By way of procrastination, Tony took another look around the room. It was a private residence, which put it a serious step up from the prisoners' dormitories, but in some ways it was almost as austere. There was one skylight, bordered by the usual vine. Three little red lamps were scattered around the floor, providing the room's only light. The cot, which looked identical to Tony's own, took up most of the floor space. In one corner stood a couple of sheathed swords. A change of clothes hung from a hook on the back of the door. Those things, and whatever was stashed under the bed, were all she had.

Kel gently reached out and picked up his left wrist, and turned it over. The stimulant strip was starting to curl up at the edges.

Tony's resolution not to break the silence promptly went out the skylight. "Did that thing do this to me?" he asked.

"Made it worse," she said, still gentle. "Not the cause."

Swell.

Her fingers found his pulse. Tony wasn't sure what she was measuring against — her own, maybe? — but he shut up and let her count.

"Better," Kel said after a while, "although it will take time for the symptoms to fade completely." She plucked at the edge of the strip. "Can I—"

Tony snatched his hand back. "Just leave it."

"The dose is in your system," she said. "This does nothing now except annoy the skin."

That startled a guffaw out of him. "'Irritate'," he told her. "Not 'annoy'."

Kel's jaw dropped in a show of offended incredulity. "They mean the same!"

"In the sense of being angry. Not in the sense of a reaction to an external stimulus."

She gave a frustrated groan. "Your language is terrible. You have too many words, and they all mean the same thing until they _don't_. Am I irritated, or annoyed?"

"I'm confident you have the capacity to be both."

Kel scowled at that, but then her attention was diverted. She hopped off the bed and crouched down to reach beneath it again. This time she came back with a small canteen.

"Here," she said, and held it out. "Of course you want water."

He did, for that matter, but…

"I don't like to be handed things," Tony told her, and steeled himself.

"Ah." Kel blinked in startlement, but adjusted quickly and set the thing down next to his knee. "Is this better?"

Tony managed a nod, and distracted himself by taking a long drink. The water, in spite of being room temperature, was welcome. A conversation about his… peeve was absolutely _not_.

She sat down next to him again, and Tony could sense the shift in mood as she assembled her bedside manner.

"How is your breathing?" she asked.

Not great, but he appeared not to be dying anymore. "Fine."

"Anxiety levels?"

_Well, let's see — still stuck on an alien planet, still about to start a war with the entirety of said planet, still responsible for Peter Parker being in said war on said planet, so…_ "Fine."

"Two lies," Kel noted pleasantly. "I can give you something for—"

"No."

"Very mild, Tony, I promise. Just to—"

"I said _no_."

"All right." She backed off, but only in preparation for her next salvo. "Can you tell me what—"

"You know, let's _not_." Desperation set his heart racing again. "It happened. It _happens_. It's done. Nothing to discuss."

Kel gave a put-upon little sigh. "All right," she repeated. "If I say to lie down, will you do this, or instead should I say to stand up?"

" _Fuck you_ ," Tony spat, and then he was up and pacing.

Of course, the tiny room turned that into an exercise in futility: two steps and he'd reached the wall at the far end of the bed. He pulled up short and found himself not so much pacing as dithering in the corner. Which was pathetic.

"I'm sorry," Kel said softly.

Tony turned. She was sitting on the bed where he'd left her, looking very small and contrite.

"I'm sorry," she said again. "That was the wrong thing."

Walls were in his way no matter which way he looked. For a rectangular room, there were far too many walls. Tony's heart was still pounding in his ears, and his breath was growing short again.

He shouldn't have snapped. As obnoxious comments went, hers had been barely a blip on the radar. And she had just helped him through the worst panic attack he'd had in recent memory, which probably earned her at least one free pass.

But she'd also _seen_ him having the worst panic attack he'd had in recent memory. She'd watched him completely melt down, and no matter how nice she'd been about it, Tony still felt horrifyingly exposed. _No one_ was supposed to… That was _private_. And for all that they'd known each other ten months, the circumstances hadn't exactly been conducive to forging deep personal bonds. Kel wasn't human, she was wicked with a sword, she carried a deep personal loyalty to Jean, and she had both a gentle streak and a brutal one, depending on the circumstances. That was all he knew.

He hadn't realized how long he'd let the silence stretch on until Kel stood up from the bed. She moved slowly, like she was trying not to spook him. "I'll go," she said. "I'll have to take you back before sunrise, but you can stay here tonight, to be alone."

Great, now he was kicking her out of her own bedroom. "No, don't," Tony said, just as she reached the door. "Just…" He held up a hand in a request for more time, and took a few sort-of steady, almost-deep breaths. "Sorry I took your head off, I just…" A weak sort of chuckle escaped him. "I'm having a bad night."

Kel smiled tentatively. "I've had bad nights," she said. "Can I come there?"

Tony nodded, and she made her way to him. She was still moving like he was a particularly skittish bunny rabbit, but maybe he'd earned that one. Once it was clear he wasn't going to bolt, she cozied right up to him with her arm around his waist and his across her shoulders.

It wasn't so bad.

The silence that fell was more comfortable this time, and Tony gradually felt himself relaxing. There was something very grounding about having another warm body next to him. Especially one that wasn't trying to ask him questions anymore. The threat of another attack faded, leaving in its place a bone-deep weariness — partly due to the aftermath of his earlier breakdown, he knew, and partly because the stimulant was wearing off.

He caught himself sharply when his eyes started to close. Before the rest of the night was taken away from him, there was something he had to know. "The kid," Tony said. "Peter. Do you have him? On your…" He gestured at his temple. "Your radar?"

"He's safe," Kel said. "In a tree, like you said, close to the other four. Asleep."

Good. Okay. That was… that was okay for now.

"Do you want to sit down?" she asked.

His body certainly did, but Tony shook his head. He still wasn't ready for the next day. He wasn't ready. The decision would be taken away from him in just a few minutes, but he was going to cling to consciousness for as long as he could.

Kel's weight shifted, and he felt her head tilt back to look up at him.

"Do you need more time tonight?" she asked.

He managed to crack one eye open again. "Can you do that?"

"You won't thank me tomorrow," Kel said. "But yes. This once."

It got a little fuzzy after that. The next thing Tony knew, he was waking up in her bed. The itching on his wrist told him that she'd fitted him with a new stimulant strip.

The drug was impressive. Tony went from 'third all-nighter' to 'third cup of coffee' in less than half a minute. He found himself back on his feet with a strong desire to _move_.

Kel was standing against the wall, more or less where he last remembered her. "Better?" she asked.

Tony nodded. "Thanks."

"There's a place outside the camp where I go sometimes," Kel said. "If you want, I can take you there for a while."

_Outside_ sounded like just this side of paradise. "Yes," he said quickly. "God, yes."

"There are rules," she warned. "You do everything I say, and when I say it's done, it's done. You don't argue. Yes?"

If it had meant getting out of camp for a while, Tony would have agreed to just about anything. "No problem," he said. "You're the boss."

Kel paused at the door, eyes half-closed, listening (or whatever the right term was) for the perimeter guards. "Stay close," she told him, and stepped outside.

They jogged across the grass, not along the shortest path to cover, but laterally toward the western road where Tony had first come in, ten long months ago.

"Keep up," Kel whispered, then took off at a run.

Tony followed hard on her heels. When he matched her easily, she sped up, pushing the pace until he was almost in a sprint. The ground wasn't completely level, and they had only starlight to see by, and his boots weren't at all designed for this sort of thing. It would be a miracle if he got out of this without twisting an ankle, or worse.

He didn't care. _God_ , he didn't care. They flew.

The ground started to slope upward, but Kel didn't slow, and Tony still matched her. They ran until he had to gulp in air through his mouth — not the desperate gasping from before, but deep, oxygen-optimizing breaths in time with his strides. They ran until his legs were on fire and sweat dripped into his eyes. It was fucking fantastic.

Kel abruptly broke left, into the forest. Tony swerved in response, but in the darkness she vanished in an instant. He jogged to a halt, suddenly mindful of the uneven ground, and felt the first frisson of danger crawl down his spine.

"I'm here."

He spun and found her standing right behind him. She was barely even breathing hard.

Kel tagged him playfully on the shoulder and said, "Come on, we're close."

She led the way, walking now, following a route that she clearly knew well. The upward slope grew rapidly more severe until they were half-hiking, half-climbing their way up a rocky ridge that some past tectonic event had left upthrust through the surrounding landscape. The soil was too thin to support the massive trees that populated the forest, and soon they were climbing up into the open air.

Up and up they went until Kel brought them to an outcropping of rock that faced west. It was roughly flat, and large enough that two people could stand comfortably apart. Below them, the forest was a mottled blanket of dark greens and greys that stretched on as far as Tony could see. Cutting through it like a badly healed scar was the black line of the ravine. To the right, looking tiny in the distance, was the suspension bridge.

Kel took a few more steps until she was right at the edge of the rock. She put her hand to her throat, drew in a deep breath, and let out a wild, inhuman shriek that raked across his eardrums.

In the silence that followed, Tony wondered if this was some kind of bizarre… scream therapy thing? But then the call was echoed back to them from somewhere much further down the slope. And then again, and again — a warning cry from some kind of animal — until, from out of the ravine, a flock took flight.

Tony couldn't tell what kinds of animals they were… birds, or bats, or something else entirely. But they were each of them iridescent in the starlight. They made a glittering, dancing swirl of light that lifted out of the ravine and expanded outward over the nearby trees. There were more calls, modulated from the first one — maybe reports of _no danger here_ — and the cloud drifted further south. The shower of yellows and reds and blues descended and shrank in the distance until the flock had settled down invisibly in the rocks again.

Kel stepped back until she was level with him. She was grinning from ear to ear.

Tony asked, "They're not gonna come up here looking for their buddy who gave the false alarm, are they?"

Kel chuckled. "No. At night, they stay near their nests in the rock. And I don't disturb them too often."

She glanced at him, and Tony was quick to grin back, to make it clear that he wasn't actually shitting on her gift. He had his breath back now, and the burning in his muscles had subsided to a pleasant ache (although it probably wouldn't be so pleasant the next morning). He felt… present in his own body in a way that he hadn't in a very long time.

"Enough space now?" she asked.

Tony nodded. "Yeah. Better."

"Good." She touched him on the shoulder again, then deliberately stepped back as far as she could go.

"How long?" Tony asked.

"A while."

He stayed where he was for a time, just looking out at the starlit sky and the landscape below, and breathing in the fresh night air. It got a bit cool at night, but thanks to the exercise, he was still plenty warm. In the quiet and calm, Tony could almost imagine that the night's earlier breakdown had been nothing more than a nightmare.

Eventually, he made his way back to join Kel. She was standing with her back to the ridge, which continued to rise well above their heads.

"I should have brought the water," she said. "Sorry. I didn't think about this part."

He shrugged. "I'll live."

She hesitated. "If you were also a Brenith, I wouldn't need to say this. But I think some things aren't obvious between the cultures, so… there is no debt here. Do you know this? You carry no debt to me, for now or for earlier."

Tony was… not entirely certain what he was supposed to do with that, but at least it didn't seem like bad news. "Noted," he said cautiously.

"Good," said Kel. "Because I want to ask you a question—"

_And_ there was the catch.

"—but you have no obligation to answer, and if you don't want to, I'll stop."

He glowered. "Really? Can I say no preemptively, then?"

"Yes."

She held his gaze calmly. Tony took a breath… and let it back out in an exasperated sigh. Now she'd gone and gotten him _curious_.

"Ask," he growled. "One question."

Kel said, "When I first came to Earth, and I needed to learn about humans, I watched… on the television. When they say the things that happened recently. The events?"

"The news," Tony said.

" _News_. Yes, the news." She pronounced it like a rerun would be called 'the olds'. "So I know, a little, who the Avengers are. Your names are spoken widely — one at a time, and as a team. But now that they're here, you don't trust them. What happened?"

Well, fuck.

Tony had to step away, to feel the safety of the open space again. She'd sure as hell gotten maximum mileage out of her _one question_.

He knew this was childish, but he needed to hear it again. "I can say no?"

"Yes," Kel said.

"If I do, will you suddenly discover that recess is over and we have to go back?"

"No," she said. "You saw how long it takes for the counteragent to wear off. We have almost that long. I just don't want to have to carry you back to camp."

Her smile at that last comment had been audible in her tone, but Tony wasn't ready to joke back.

He was pretty sure he believed her, at least. A simple 'no' would end it, and he could go back to looking at the pretty trees and pretending that he was fine.

Until the next time he fell apart.

Tony stepped up closer to the edge of the plateau. There was something to be said for the fact that Kel wasn't human. She hadn't grown up on stories of Captain America; probably didn't have much of an opinion on the Avengers as a concept; had no particular notion of what the United Nations was. The story wouldn't mean much to her, which made the thought of telling it feel a tiny bit less threatening.

He didn't know if trying to talk through it would help prevent another attack, or bring one on. He didn't know if he could survive another night like this one.

He did know that Kel had let him blubber into her shirt and hadn't said one word about it afterward, and while the sobbing had sucked pretty hard, the feeling of her arms around him had been… well, that part could have been a lot worse.

He could try. They were alone, she was listening, and he could try.

"How much do you know about Rogers? Captain America?"

"I know he is enhanced," she said. "One of your first, maybe. He fought in a large war long ago, and leads the Avengers now."

Tony flinched. "I see you weren't exactly keeping up with current events when the portals happened."

"No. I had to do other things."

This already wasn't going in quite the direction he'd intended, but Tony was never going to make it through if he thought too closely about what he was saying. He took a breath and tried to let his mouth run on autopilot.

"Rogers had a friend. Barnes. Grew up together, epic century-long bromance sort of thing. Both of them got a free trip to the future, albeit for different reasons. Rogers got to sleep through seventy years of history in the Arctic ocean, and Barnes— do you know about Hydra?"

"An enemy clan," she said.

"…That works. Barnes was captured by Hydra and enhanced like Rogers, or something close to it, so they could use him as an assassin."

This was the part where the Accords and the UN bombing went.

The Accords. The politics. Rogers' interference, Ross and his threats, everything Tony'd done to try and put out the fire—

But it was too damned late because he was already back in the bunker.

He could smell the musty air again. See the flicker of the ancient, grainy video. Feel the creeping cold shock of recognition at the road, and the car. Hear, in his mind, the crash—

"Barnes murdered my parents." The sentence fell out of him like a stone. "Rogers knew — for _years_ — and never told me."

Tony's chin dropped. His face was wet again. The grief felt too huge for one body to contain.

Kel said something quiet in her own language, then added, "I'm still here, Tony."

The words couldn't be stopped now. "When I found out… I tried to kill him. Barnes."

"You had a claim," she said.

"No. _No_. That's the _point_." Tony spun back to face her. She _had_ to understand this. "Barnes was… he was taken, tortured… Hydra had him for _decades_. I need to study it more, but somehow they literally reprogrammed his brain so that he had no choice but to obey. Do you get it? He had _no choice_ in what he did. He was just the weapon. And I would have beaten him to death with my bare hands."

Kel walked to his side, picked up one of his hands, and subjected it to careful scrutiny.

"No," she said.

Tony blinked. "No… what?"

"You don't kill with your hands. To damage, yes. To cause pain. But not to kill. You would have stopped."

He scoffed. "You weren't there."

"The hands are wrong." She shrugged. "I can't explain."

"Well, Rogers didn't—" he scrubbed at his eyes with his other hand "—he didn't wait around to find out. He stopped me. Both of them. They beat me. They won. And then they left."

Kel shifted her grip on his hand, and raised it to lightly touch his knuckles to her brow. "I'm still here," she said again.

Of course, Tony hadn't even answered the fucking question. He turned away from her again and started pacing, like he hadn't been able to do in her bedroom. "And the rest of them…" It was all out of order now and wasn't going to make any sense, but the words came tumbling out anyway. "One by one, they fell into line behind Rogers. Even when— there was another problem going on at the same time. I don't want to get into the whole— the point is, they were in danger. Of being arrested or killed. I was _trying_ … I was just trying to keep them all safe, and at every step, every single step, they did the _exact opposite thing_. All of them, even the ones who started off on my side, they all— why couldn't they _see_ what—"

He took another step and found Kel standing right in front of him. She wrapped her arms around his waist and leaned her head on his chest. Tony sputtered pointlessly for a few seconds before giving in to the inevitable and returning the embrace.

More hugging happened. Maybe a bit more sobbing.

"Tony, can you do me a favor?" Kel asked once he'd managed to pull himself together again.

"What's that?"

"Step back from the edge."

Tony looked down. The small plateau they were on came to an abrupt end not three inches from his foot. Below was not quite a sheer drop, but definitely an unpleasant tumble all the way down to the base of the ridge.

He hadn't actually meant to do that.

"Please," Kel added.

Not arguing. Tony took a long step back, and she came with him.

"Thank you," she said.

"Yeah. Don't mention it."

It took a minute for the adrenaline spike from the close call to wear off, but afterward, Tony found his breath coming a little easier. He felt… 'lighter' wasn't exactly the word. The burden hadn't diminished. Maybe, though — having leaned on her and not been allowed to fall — he felt a little more balanced.

Yeah. 'Balanced' would do.

Tony wandered slowly back to where the plateau joined onto the rest of the ridge. He didn't quite know what to do with himself. He didn't want to go back to camp yet. On the other hand, after what had just happened, hanging out here for another half an hour making small talk seemed preposterous.

Kel turned out to have an idea about that.

"Do you want to go higher?" She pointed up above their heads, where another, much smaller ledge jutted out from the rock face maybe thirty feet up.

It was — this part couldn't be overstated — the middle of a moonless night. They had no climbing gear. Kel, for all her talents, probably couldn't repair him if he wound up falling and cracking open his skull. Rock climbing under these conditions was a terrible idea.

"Sure," Tony said. "Let's do it."

"I'll go first, because I know the way," she said, "but I'll need help at the end."

She started to climb the ridge, which was steep enough now to more properly be called a cliff. Tony promptly felt like a jerk for worrying about his own safety, because in addition to having no climbing gear, Kel also had only one hand. She could brace herself with her elbow, but reaching for a new handhold was still an exercise in balance and nerve.

For most of the climb, hand- and footholds were plentiful. Kel moved slowly, by necessity; Tony could have easily outpaced her if he'd tried. The process, as slow and measured as it was, became almost meditative: the world contracted to the roughness of the rock beneath his fingers, and the position of the next handhold, and the shift and pull of muscles as he rose.

When Kel was just below their destination, she stopped her ascent and started moving to the left to clear the way for him.

"I think it won't be that difficult for you," she said. "There's just the one place where I can't reach."

Tony drew level with her and looked up, and — yeah, he could see the problem. The rock not only went sheer, it also angled slightly outward. He could stretch his way past the trouble spot with only a _bit_ of pulse-pounding daredevilry. With her foreshortened reach, Kel could never have managed it.

The last stretch of the climb held no hidden tricks, and a few minutes later, Tony stepped down onto the little ledge. It was big enough for one person to sit comfortably; the two of them were going to be practically in each other's laps.

Kel was still more than an arm's length below him. Tony sat down and twisted around until he was lying on his stomach, and slid forward as far as he dared. Kel shifted carefully back across the rock face toward him.

"Oh hells, I didn't think," she said suddenly. "Can you do this? I have to hand you _me_ , and you don't like that."

Tony groaned. "Well, it's a bit late _now_." He hadn't thought about it either, which probably meant that it wouldn't be a problem as long as he continued not thinking about it. "I don't like to be handed _things_. You're not _things_. Now get up here before I remember how stunningly reckless this is."

She inched her way a little bit further up the rock, and stretched up with her right arm while Tony stretched down with both hands.

"Got you," he said when he closed his hands around her elbow.

Every day was upper body day in a vibranium mine. The exertion of the climb had left a bit of a burn in his shoulders and arms, but he had plenty left to take part of her weight. Kel's biceps flexed beneath his hands as she pulled herself high enough to stretch her left hand to the top of the overhang.

Tony shifted back and pulled up. She moved one foot up, then the next, then anchored herself with his grip again and reached for a new handhold. This one brought her up to eye level with the ledge.

"I have it now. You can let go."

"Uh…" From his position, he had an excellent view of the deadly fall in store for her if she missed her grip. He could feel the echoes of… other falls, and other misses. "Or I could just pull you up the rest of the way," Tony said. "It's faster."

The sharp look she gave him suggested that she'd picked up on the urgency of the request, but she didn't comment. Tony kept his grip on her arm, rising to his knees and then his feet as needed, until she was safely on the ledge with him.

As predicted, it was a tight fit. They could just barely sit down side by side, pressed together from hip to knee. Tony put his arm around her shoulders again, and she stretched hers across his back.

"Thank you," she said. "For the hand."

Amputee jokes didn't get any more obvious. Tony smiled anyway.

"Thank you," he said quietly after a stretch of silence. "For this, and… before. The whole thing."

Against his shoulder, her head nodded.

"Can I ask you something?" Tony said. "No obligation."

"Of course, Tony."

"Why did you do all this? Not that I'm not appreciative, but you could have just knocked me out and been done with it. Lot less bother on your part. Why the special treatment?"

Kel exhaled slowly. "Compassion," she said, "is not an instinct for me. It's a choice. Something I know from the time I spent on Earth, and what I learned about humans: there are more choices than I thought I had." Her arm tightened a little around his waist. "I want to help because I choose to. I don't always do it right. But if I 'just knock you out' to be done faster, and it causes you more pain, this is also a choice. Not a better one, I think."

Tony wasn't entirely sure there'd been an answer in there, although in fairness he didn't know what he'd expected her to say.

"I know," she added, "that you would not have chosen to let me see you tonight, or to tell me these things. For this, I do carry a debt."

He wanted to tell her that he wasn't keeping score, but he held off. She used that phrase in a very specific, almost ritual manner, and he didn't want to blunder into a cultural taboo.

"You did," he said instead. "Help. For the record."

"I'm glad."

"They don't trust me, either," Tony found himself saying next, because conversational continuity was for chumps. "It cuts both ways. There were other… I didn't exactly give you the whole picture. Or any of the picture. I gave you none of the picture."

Kel's head tilted noncommittally. "If you want to say more, I'm still here. But… I think maybe this was already a lot, for one day."

Yeah.

"New topic, then," Tony said. "This war we're about to start. You know the players and the conditions. And I gather that you've fought these kinds of battles before."

"Yes."

He stared out at the narrow line of the ravine, almost invisible in the dark. _Step one: move the camp into the hills. Step two: destroy the bridge. Step three: hold off an army._ Except that last step was missing quite a few steps.

"I know Jean believes we have a chance. Where do you stand?"

Kel didn't answer right away, and Tony started to wonder if she was deciding how to lie.

"It will be difficult," she said at last. "In the end, they will come in large numbers. They are stronger. We have to be smarter. I think," she added, tilting her head back to look at him, "you wouldn't be so worried if you had a team you trusted."

"Okay, looking for a _tactical_ assessment, thank you, not a psychological one."

"Also, now that the younger one is here, every risk feels like it's too much, even if it's small."

_Rude_. "What the hell happened to 'already a lot for one day'?" Tony protested.

She quit eyeballing him and settled her head back against his shoulder again. "There is always risk. I can't promise what will happen. But I know that a small group can turn an army, if it's the right group."

"Turn many armies in your career, have you?"

"Two," she said, annoyingly. Then: "The last one cost me a friend, and my hand."

And Tony was back to feeling like a jerk. "Sorry," he said quietly. "That was a stupid thing to be flippant about." Rhodey would have kicked his ass, and rightly so.

"I can tell you more about it, if you want," Kel said. "But you're right — another day. For now, maybe think of this: we just started to plan, and to collect information. There will be problems, yes, but also time to find solutions."

Tony drew in a slow breath. Both of Kel's observations had been obnoxiously accurate: if he had a team that he trusted ( _he didn't_ ), or if Parker's life weren't also on the line ( _it was_ ), maybe it would be easier to believe that the Avengers were up to the task. Maybe some of his anxiety was just… _anxiety_ , and not an accurate reflection of the odds. Maybe.

"Also," Kel said, "Jean wants your opinions. You'll know what happens, and you'll be able to help. I promise this."

Tony managed a nod of acknowledgment, and Kel didn't push for more.

Silence again. One last time, on their little vacation from reality: silence and calm, alone up here above the forest. It didn't hold a candle to flying, but on this planet, it was as close as he could hope to get.

Maybe twenty minutes had gone by when Kel very nicely unravelled his arm from around her shoulders. She tucked one leg underneath her and shifted sideways so she was facing him. For the second time that night, she tested his pulse.

"How is your breathing?" she asked afterward, because subtlety was not one of her strong suits.

Tony took an experimental deep breath. "Pretty much back," he said. "The run helped. Although, maybe a slightly more moderate pace for the return trip?"

She smiled. "Anxiety levels?"

He waved a hand. "Haven't you heard? Anxious is the new normal."

"There are ways that a healer could help," Kel said. "You can talk to Aaron, if it's easier."

"No," Tony said quickly, then realized what it must have sounded like. "I mean, not 'no' to the concept, as such. Maybe. I'll think it over. 'No' to the part where someone else could have made this easier."

He'd meant it as a compliment, and from the way she looked bashfully down for a second, it had landed that way.

Tony decided not to wait for her to point out the obvious. "We have to head back soon, don't we."

"Yes."

"It occurs to me that getting down is going to be a bit of an adventure."

Kel took a casual look over the edge. "The first time I did this, I just jumped," she said.

"You can't jump that, you'd break both your legs!"

"Yes?"

Tony rolled his eyes. "Let me put it another way. _I'm_ not jumping, and since I don't want to _hear_ you break both your legs, you are also not jumping. Yes?"

As intended, she couldn't argue with her own syntax. "Yes."

"How did you even get up here on your own? Or was Jean—"

"No, I was alone. I have a…" She mimed an extension of her arm.

"A prosthesis?" Tony suggested. Off her blank look, he clarified, "An artificial limb?"

"Prosthesis," she pronounced carefully. "If that's what it's called. With a hook, for climbing. Not as good as fingers, but enough."

Oh wow, he could do _so_ much better than that. Back home, he could have done orders of magnitude better, and even here on anti-tech planet, he could absolutely make improvements.

"You know, if you let me take a look at it, I could take a shot at a more versatile design," Tony said.

Kel's head tilted curiously. "All right. After I get back. If you aren't too busy then."

He came this close to asking her where she was going, which just went to show how much that night had screwed with his head. Of course she was leaving the next morning to go and fetch Rogers.

With that unpleasant dose of reality, it was time for their interlude to end. Kel let Tony anchor her for the first part of her descent, even though it was clear that she was humoring him. They made it to the plateau with no broken legs, then continued down the side of the ridge until they were back in the forest.

Once they were at ground level, Kel told Tony to wait for her, then disappeared for several nerve-wracking minutes. He was getting ready to announce to the forest at large that this was not exactly helping his trust issues when she finally emerged from the darkness, holding — incongruously — an apple.

"Very few plants here are safe for humans to eat," she said, "but this one is cross-bred from seeds they took from our side. An early experiment in how to keep their workers alive. If you are away from camp and need water, don't drink from a stream. Try to find one of these."

Kel started to hold it out, caught herself, and set it on the ground instead. (Certain measures that worked smoothly across a table were damned awkward in the wilderness, but Tony appreciated the effort.) She pulled the dagger from her lower back sheath and set it down as well, then moved aside.

Tony collected both items. The apple, upon closer inspection, wasn't really an apple: the skin was more like a rind, and he had to hack at it with her knife to get at the flesh beneath. At her encouraging nod, he put it to his lips. It was softer than an apple, a little bit sweet, and very juicy. The first bite reminded him of just how thirsty he was; by the time they reached the road, he'd eaten the whole thing and felt substantially better.

Kel did kick them up into a jog for the last leg of the trip, but the pace wasn't taxing. They slowed down and ducked off the road just as the camp came into view, and took the traditional route from the perimeter past the infirmary and back to the dorm.

Tony didn't argue when she de-stripped him.

"Sleep well," Kel whispered. "Tomorrow, we start to work."

 


	16. Chapter 16

If Natasha had been in charge of the prison camp, she would have known that a plan was in motion just from the tension in the air at breakfast. She would have seen the looks of surprise, the nervousness, the requests for confirmation sent up the chain and the reassurances offered in response. She would have picked up on the way that information and cues flowed from Jean to a network of lieutenants, and then outward through the rest of the population.

And even if she'd missed those things, she definitely would have noticed the hand signal that was being thrown around everywhere: one hand forming a set of horns, and the other chopping it off at the wrist. Jean was capable of subtlety, but apparently she picked her moments.

The Mjentur, however, seemed blissfully unaware of all of it. When they weren't issuing orders, they paid about as much attention to their prisoners as a human might have paid to an ant farm. Such complacency, Natasha decided, must have arisen through a combination of Kel feeding the Mjentur misinformation about human behavior, and Jean maintaining careful control over the rest of the population in order to bear that information out. It was an impressive bit of social engineering.

Breakfast was adequate, if uninspiring. Afterward, about twenty prisoners began to clean up, while the rest were formed up into lines. Jean, Tony and Alisha were all in this latter group, and Natasha was ordered to join it as well. They marched north, escorted by twenty-five of the Mjentur. When they reached the northern border of the camp, Alisha's line and five of the guards split off and turned right, heading for a cluster of buildings near to the east road. The remaining prisoners continued to the mine.

The previous night's meeting circle had been lit by, of all things, a vine with brightly glowing leaves. A much older and thicker version of the same vine climbed the side of the tunnel that led into the mine, and spread out along its ceiling. Jean walked to the head of the line, picked up a metal pitcher, and poured out a clear liquid over the vine's root system. Leaves began to switch on sequentially like very slow Christmas lights.

The prisoners marched single-file into the tunnel, moving slowly so as not to outpace the advance of the lighting. En route, they passed one Mjentur who issued each of them a rather silly-looking green face mask, then a second who supplied the pickaxes.

Natasha collected her mask and fit it over her nose and mouth. The webbing sealed to her skin tightly enough that she wondered how they were supposed to get them off again. The prisoner in front of her, a dark-haired woman who carried herself like a soldier, turned around to run her fingers firmly along the edge of Natasha's mask, double-checking the seal. She indicated that Natasha should pass the gesture down the line. Mindful of Jean's comments about airborne toxins, Natasha did so.

Her civic duty done, she then received her pickaxe and hefted it experimentally. The head of the axe had a sharp point for cracking rock and a flat edge for prying. It was a cheap mass-produced thing with terrible balance, but more than adequate as a weapon.

And again, the signs of an imminent attack were all around her. Workers for whom the axes should have been familiar tools were fidgeting with their grips. Some people shifted nervously from foot to foot as they waited for the line to move, while others were staring at the guards like they were already visualizing a fight. As a side effect, Natasha was easily able to pick out the members of the group with combat training, since they were the ones _not_ giving off obvious signals. Tony was in that cohort, as was Natasha's neighbor. These oases of calm were evenly distributed through the line of prisoners, which of course was no accident.

The tunnel ran in a square spiral downward through three revolutions, at a very mild gradient. It was braced at regular intervals with thick wooden beams along the walls and ceiling. Rails were laid into the ground, presumably for transporting ore and excess rock up to the surface.

Natasha reached the end of the spiral and stepped out into a massive cavern. Its ceiling was festooned with more lengths of vine, all of which were shining brightly now. Ventilation shafts were all but hidden behind the layer of leaves. The cavern was supported by columns of rock, though fewer of them than Natasha would have preferred. She hoped that an engineer had been consulted at some point on the structural integrity of the design; it would be highly inconvenient for them all to die in a cave-in.

The main cavern seemed to have been all but mined out. There was only one relatively small stretch along the right-hand wall where bright streaks of silver were visible against the dull grey of the surrounding rock. Opposite the cavern entrance was another tunnel that followed the seam deeper into the hillside, and the majority of the workers headed there. Natasha, however, followed her neighbor's lead and joined the smaller work crew that remained in the main cavern. Jean positioned herself nearby. Tony had been somewhat further ahead of them, and ended up just inside the extension tunnel.

It was annoying not to be privy to the details of the plan. All Natasha could do was wait and watch. Her neighbor showed her how to chip around the silver fragments of vibranium so that they could be extricated from the rock, and Natasha copied the technique — not that she planned on making a career out of this, but blending in with her surroundings was as reflexive as breathing.

Everyone knew what to do with no prompting from the guards. The work crews filled baskets at their feet with ore, then carried them alone or in pairs to a line of small carts in the center of the cavern. Most of the prisoners were spread out along the extension tunnel, but most of the guards stayed in the main cavern, again displaying that overconfidence in their control over their workforce.

By Natasha's estimate, almost an hour went by before anything interesting happened.

It started when Jean and the man working next to her (mid-thirties, not one of her lieutenants but of a calmer demeanor than most) hoisted up their basket between them and dumped it, bringing the first cart in line near to full. They came around behind the cart and began to push it along the rails, back up the spiral.

This would have been unremarkable in and of itself, but not long after, the pair that had been working next to Jean made a noisy production of tripping on each other and spilling rocks everywhere. They played it up even more by getting in each other's faces and starting a silent but fierce shoving match. A couple of the Mjentur overseers waded in to split them up, and for several seconds, all attention was focused in that direction.

Obviously Natasha wasn't so gauche as to look the other way, toward the extension tunnel, but there was no question that the scuffle had been a cover for something.

The diversionary pair didn't push their luck to the point of getting punished. The theatrics ended, and work resumed.

Jean and her cart-pushing partner returned about ten minutes later. They reentered the cavern just as Tony completed a solo trip to dump his own basket.

Jean's partner levered the empty cart off the rails and headed with it toward the end of the line, while Jean paused by one of the bracing beams at the cavern entrance to catch her breath. She rested one hand on the wood of the beam, and casually snapped a stray splinter.

Tony similarly paused at the entrance to the extension tunnel, and did exactly the same thing.

Mjentur were wobbling on their feet less than a minute later. Those who hadn't been hit as hard yet turned to their companions in concern, paying even less attention to the prisoners when they should have been paying more. Increasingly agitated conversation from the guards in the cavern brought the few from the extension tunnel back up to see what the problem was.

The cavern had been filled with the din of eighty pickaxes striking rock. Now the noise began to taper off as the prisoners realized what was happening. Jean stepped back from the wall and caught Tony's eye. He signalled that the tunnel behind him was clear. Jean gave a simple hand sign in response — _go!_ — and he echoed the order down the line.

There was a sudden renewed clatter as most of the workers dropped their pickaxes. Jean and a few of the combatants whom Natasha had identified earlier stepped forward into the cavern to form a defensive line, while the rest of the humans filed back into the extension tunnel.

This, at last, attracted the attention of the Mjentur, but it was too late: they were already dying. Those still able to stand reached for their swords; only a handful managed to draw them. Shouted orders turned into agonized groans. With his last breaths, one of them swung his sword at Jean, but fell so far short that she didn't have to move a muscle. Another made a desperate run for the exit tunnel, and collapsed after three steps. They spasmed, choked, and died.

"Escort everyone to the rendezvous point," Jean ordered. Her voice was rock-solid, as it needed to be. "I'll deal with the group at the surface."

Patently the extension tunnel was also an escape tunnel. More than half of the prisoners had already vanished. Natasha surmised that the exit had been incomplete or disguised in some way, and the diversion earlier had been a cover for opening it up. Tony and the rest of Jean's backup team obediently retreated and joined the remaining line of escapees.

Jean caught Natasha's eye in a silent invitation, and stepped around Mjentur corpses toward the exit. Natasha paused to discard her pickaxe and scavenge a few belt knives before falling in beside her.

"Kel gave me the all-clear earlier," Jean said. "We don't need to leave survivors."

"Understood."

The walk back up the spiral was silent. Jean didn't worry at the hilt of her axe, or give off any other overt signs of stress. Someone had taught her how to manage her tells.

When they reached the final turn, Jean leaned over and murmured, "This may be rather boring for you. Kel has been spoiling for a fight for months, and she often forgets to share."

"There'll be plenty of war to go around," Natasha replied.

Jean hummed quietly in acknowledgment. Her eyebrows lifted slightly, and Natasha nodded. Jean shored up her grip on her axe, turned the corner, and broke out into a run.

There were four more Mjentur by the mine entrance, milling about in a highly undisciplined matter. They heard the footsteps, of course, and had time to draw their swords and close in on the tunnel entrance.

Jean was in the lead. She took the first sword strike on the head of her axe and expertly deflected it. She came in low beneath a wild backhand, swung, and buried the point of the axe in the guard's thigh. He went down howling.

Natasha drew her first knife and set her sights on her own playmate, who bellowed and charged. She slipped to the outside of the wild cut that was supposed to take her head off, and drove the knife into the meat of his shoulder. The arm went dead, and the broadsword clattered to the ground. He lunged again and tried to gore her with his horns. She saw it coming, caught a horn in her hand, and leapt up onto his shoulders. The second knife was in her other hand, and she sliced open his throat.

The clash of metal on metal had started just after Natasha had engaged her opponent, and it ended before he'd stopped twitching. She'd caught enough of the battle in her peripherals to know that none of her allies were in immediate jeopardy. Now, with the threat neutralized, she could take in the details. The Mjentur who'd attacked Jean had her pickaxe embedded in his skull. The final two were in multiple pieces, and Kel was standing over them with a bloody sword.

Jean's hands were shaking now, just a little.

Kel, by contrast, knelt with casual detachment by the corpses at her feet and liberated their knives. One she clipped to her belt, and the other she tucked into her boot. Apparently she belonged to the school of thought that held that there was no such thing as too many knives: that made five blades on her person, not counting the sword.

That done, Kel beckoned both of them behind a tight cluster of shrubbery, where Natasha found a small metal bucket, some towels, and extra sets of the prisoners' uniforms.

"Change clothes, and wash your skin," she said to Natasha. "It removes the poison, and will also take off the mask."

Jean had already turned her back and was removing her jacket. Natasha, who was more than happy to exercise caution when it came to nerve gases, followed suit. Kel left them to it.

Once that chore was completed, Jean jogged over to a nearby wagon that had one small mine cart's worth of rock dumped into it. She dropped down onto her back and slipped beneath it, and emerged a moment later with a spear in her hand. The six-foot shaft of deep red wood was topped by a foot-long blade that had been polished to a shine.

Jean had been competent with the pickaxe. This weapon she handled like an old friend.

Meanwhile, the rest of the group, nearly eighty strong, was slowly emerging from the trees. The combatants, who still had their axes, had coalesced into three groups of four. Tony's group included Natasha's neighbor, a man of average build who had been one of the first to march into the cavern, and a big fellow with the swagger of a cop.

The latter man was the one who asked Jean, "Why now? You told us we couldn't go home for another ten months."

"We can't," Jean said. She looked at Natasha, and gave a faint smile. "However, our resources have changed. We can take our lives back. Kel, what's my head count?"

Kel's eyes closed, and her fingers twitched. After a moment, she flashed the ASL for twenty-five.

"Tony, send up the signal," Jean said. "Team One, you're with us. Teams Two and Three, your first and only priority is to protect the noncombatants. If any Mjentur get past us, fend them off but do not let yourselves be drawn out of position." She gave a pointed nod to the side, where Vision and Sam had appeared. "We have some Avengers as our new backstop."

Murmurs ran through the crowd, and Natasha could see the realization and hope dawning on their faces. The Avengers, in both concept and execution, had taken some heavy blows recently… but if someone had asked her whether they were worth saving, that reaction would have been her answer.

At Jean's order, Tony had gone up a tree. Shortly thereafter, a bright red flare leapt out of the forest canopy and cut across the sky.

Jean held up one hand to the crowd. She waited, and they all waited with her, eighty people holding their breath.

From the east came the sudden thunderclap of an explosion. Then another — several in rapid succession — from both east and south.

"Update?" Jean asked Kel.

This time the count was five, and all of them lay straight ahead.

"Yes, I like those odds rather better." Jean looked back at her team of volunteers. "Let's finish this."

Jean understood the value of appearances. It would have been safer to leave the noncombatants hidden until the camp was cleared, but she carried them all along in her wake. What was done, was done for all to see.

When they reached the camp perimeter, Natasha saw the extent of the sabotage. The complex to the east consisted of a handful of outbuildings scattered around a central structure that now had a huge smoking hole in its side. Ahead of her was the row of three buildings that stood adjacent to the outdoor dining area, across from the barracks. The central one had suffered so much explosives damage that its roof had collapsed.

The five surviving Mjentur came boiling out of the next building over. They seemed to be the most senior members of the camp staff, including the massive hulking commandant whom Natasha had noted the evening before. The guards they'd defeated at the mouth of the mine had been sleepwalking their way through an easy assignment, and had barely realized what was happening before they'd been neutralized. These five were older, more seasoned, and knew that they were fighting a full-fledged insurrection.

Spear in hand, Jean charged. She was flanked by Kel on her left and Tony's unit of four on her right. Natasha matched their pace, but kept to the back of the formation. This fight didn't belong to her.

Kel did have a problem with sharing. She put on a burst of speed at the last second to take point, and had three of the enemy on her instantly. It should have been an egregious mismatch — and it was, but in the other direction. Kel's sword flicked and danced through the air with inhuman skill. None of them could keep up with her. Barely had the battle been joined when she slashed open the belly of one and he went down in a pool of blood and entrails. The second lost, in quick succession, a hand, a leg, and a head.

The third she disarmed and hamstrung. Then, once he was helpless on his knees, she dropped her own sword and wrapped her hand around his snout, and bore him to the ground. He spasmed and convulsed, helpless in the grip of whatever alien power she could channel through her skin, before mercifully going still. Kel sank back on her heels and rolled her neck.

Tony and his unit, meanwhile, had enveloped the fourth Mjentur. With the kind of synchronization that spoke of long practice, two of them engaged the sword while the other two struck from behind. It took a couple of passes, but soon the Mjentur went down with the cop's pickaxe embedded deep in his back.

The final battle, though, came down to the camp commandant with a sword in each hand versus Jean and her spear. The Mjentur had the advantage of height, weight and inhuman strength, and unlike his subordinates, he was disciplined and not allowing anger to blind him. But Jean fought back fearlessly with the skill of lifelong training. The remainder of the prisoners — one group from the east complex, another from behind the barracks — crept out of hiding and joined those who had come from the mine. All together, they watched.

It was no accident that the first time Jean drew blood was to lay open the commandant's cheek to the bone.

The pain barely seemed to register. He redoubled his attack, and suddenly Jean was on the defensive. She dropped back, staff and spearpoint barely able to keep up with the onslaught. Kel was standing close by — Kel could have ended it by now — but she didn't intervene, even when a backhanded swipe landed and Jean gave a yell and all but collapsed from a vicious score across her ribs.

Then the commandant made his mistake. He assumed that he'd won.

He drove forward to press his advantage — too fast, too reckless. Jean slipped neatly beneath the next cut, and at the same time the spearpoint flicked out and bit through leather armor. He reeled back, blood gushing from his upper arm, and one of the swords fell to the ground. He blocked Jean's next two strikes but missed the third, and the butt of her spear cracked him in the snout.

A bellow of pain. A flinch and a missed step. It was almost over.

Jean caught the blade of the remaining sword on the shaft of her spear and circled against his wrist. His grip broke. She sliced down, carving open his thigh and dropping him to his knees, then thrust forward and buried the full length of her blade in his guts.

The Mjentur didn't collapse. He looked up at her and gurgled something, blood bubbling out of his mouth.

"Hush," Jean told him.

She yanked the spear back and stepped to the side, and brought the edge of the blade up to rest against his throat.

There she paused, and turned to Tony.

Tony walked forward to join her, slowly, like he was in a trance. His eyes were fixed on the Mjentur. His face was ashen.

Jean asked him, "Do you want this?"

Tony looked down at his hands and watched them flex, as if perhaps he was imagining what the the death blow would feel like. It took him a long time to decide.

"You were there first," he said at last.

She nodded. The point flicked through the air one last time and laid open the Mjentur's throat. He bled out in seconds.

Jean now had a bloody spear in her hands. She understood the value of appearances; Natasha wondered which image she would choose to present.

She tossed it to the ground, and stepped back.

"They stole us because they thought we were weak," Jean said. "They were wrong. Some of them just found out how wrong they were."

She stepped back and back again, distancing herself from the site of the battle, and looked out over the assembled crowd. The Avengers had figured out their role and were wending their way forward: Vision, Sam, Clint, Wanda, and Spider-Man. Tony was already beside her, and Natasha joined them as well. Gasps and whispers rippled through the crowd; Jean waited until they stilled.

She pressed one arm down over her wound, and gathered her breath. "In the past, I've asked you for your patience," she said in a clear, steady voice. "Now I'm asking you for your help. Our trip home is ten months away, and there's a great deal of work to be done." She gestured to the Avengers. "But we have a far greater advantage than we had before. Enough that we no longer have to pretend to be something we're not.

"We are going to move up into the hills. We are going to choose a piece of land close to the portal and make it ours. We are going to set every trap and barricade we can think of between here and there, so that when the enemy marches on us, we will make them bleed for every inch. And in the end, they will collide with the Avengers and they will shatter!"

A voice called out, "What happened to Captain America?"

"We're bringing him back," Jean answered. "A rescue team is leaving imminently." She drew another breath, and pressed her arm down a little harder. "I promised that I would bring everyone home, and I will! Together, we will sustain ourselves and defend ourselves until it's time to go home! I know that we can prevail. I'm asking you for your help. Are you with me?"

The responses started off small and scattered, but they built on each other, as such things did. People saw their neighbors nod, and began to do the same. One or two calls of "Yes!" inspired positive murmurs, which inspired more cries. The reality of another ten months on this planet would set in sooner or later, but this moment was carried on a swell of optimism.

"Your section leaders know the next steps," Jean announced. "Talk to them for today's plans. There are some details that I need to address, but I will be back very soon, and I'll speak with anyone who has questions."

If left to their own devices, at least a few people would have tried to mob Jean right then, but her network of lieutenants took over and started breaking up the crowd into smaller groups. And a good thing, too, because among the more pressing of those details to be addressed was her injury.

Once Jean's speech ended, every one of the Avengers tried to move to her side at once, which didn't work out particularly well.

"I'm fine," Jean said, which was one of the more blatant lies Natasha had ever heard. Now that she was out of the spotlight, her voice was audibly labored, and she was growing pale. Beneath the arm that she had pressed to her ribs, a bloodstain was spreading across her shirt.

"You are _not_ fine," Sam retorted. "What kind of medical facilities has this place got?"

"It's more a matter of personnel than facilities."

Aaron had broken free of the crowd, and was hurrying to join the cluster of people surrounding Jean. Natasha had met him the evening before, when she'd woken up in the camp's medical ward. He hadn't been introduced by name, but she'd recognized him from Peter and Kiran's rundown of their team. Now he squeezed his way between Avengers until he reached Jean's side, and let his hand hover over her injury.

"Do you want to know how close he came to lacerating your liver?" he asked.

"Not particularly," Jean said. With her free hand, she also answered in sign.

"Should I tell you how many broken ribs you have?"

"I'd rather you didn't."

"Are you going to let me take you to the infirmary?"

"Not just yet."

He huffed at her in annoyance and planted himself on her good side. She leaned on his shoulder.

Natasha shared a quick look with Sam and Clint, and confirmed that yes, they'd also noticed that yet another member of Jean's team was enhanced.

"Final count?" Jean asked Kel.

Kel also began to sign as she spoke. "None escaped," she said. "All in the cave are dead. Two in processing and one in the kitchen survived the explosions, but not by much. They will die soon. There is no threat."

Alisha had been a little slower than Aaron to make her way through the crowd. She approached the group from outside Jean's field of view, just in time to hear Kel's assessment. A choking noise burst from her throat, and she covered her mouth with her hand.

Jean turned quickly — too quickly, and the pain made her gasp.

"Oh God, I'm sorry!" Alisha cried. "I'm sorry, I just…"

She looked desperately from Jean to Kel to Tony, but whatever she saw was of no help. Jean caught her breath again and was on the cusp of responding, but before she could form more than a syllable, Alisha bolted.

"Her bombs?" Natasha asked quietly.

"Yes," Jean said. She and Tony both looked stricken.

Hesitantly, Kel asked, "Was I supposed to lie?"

Jean shook her head. "No. My fault, not yours. I'll fix it." With a palpable effort, she refocused on the Avengers. "Have you selected a rescue team?"

Clint answered, "We need stealth, not splashy explosions, so me, Sam and— Nat, you're still up for this, right?"

As if he needed to ask. "Of course."

"Me, Sam and Nat," Clint said. "And that one, of course," he added with a nod in Kel's direction.

"Agreed," said Jean. "For those who are staying here, it is critical in these early days that we maintain the rudiments of daily life: food and water, and basic hygiene. Today, we have a certain amount of organic debris to clear away, and two more meals to provide. And our kitchen just exploded. I've retasked the mining crews to help with camp maintenance. I'll ask you please to spread yourselves out and join up with the work details. Any questions?"

Wanda and Vision were with the program; Spider-Man still had something else on his mind.

"You're… really bleeding," he said quietly. His eyes were very wide.

Jean glanced down at her side, unconcerned. "Yes, we unenhanced humans sometimes carry our frailties close to the surface."

"But that guy nearly _killed_ you. With a _sword_."

She gave a casual flick of her fingers. "It wasn't that close."

"Yes, it was," said Aaron.

Tony would have been within his rights to point out that the morning's events counted as smelling a swordfight. He'd been preoccupied since the death of the commandant, but in the face of Peter's obvious distress, he tried to snap himself out of it.

"Don't worry about it, kid," he said. "Membership in her gang comes with surprisingly good health care."

"Yeah, but—"

"Peter," Jean said, "a hundred thirty people drink almost half a ton of water every day. I'll be fine. Aaron can fix this. Right now, I need you to go carry water for us. All right?"

Peter finally lifted his gaze from her side to her eyes. "Water," he repeated. "Yeah. I can… yeah, okay."

He, Vision and Wanda took their leave. Tony hesitated.

"Tony—"

"Work crews, yeah, I got the message," he said, although he still made no move to leave.

"Actually…" Jean pointed in the direction that Alisha had fled. "That one's yours."

Tony's jaw dropped. "What? No. No, it's not. You can't just _assign_ —"

"Just did," Jean said.

"So when you said earlier—"

"I'm delegating."

He glowered at her, but obediently stomped off in the indicated direction. That left only the rescue team.

Jean's fist was clenched tight in the fabric of Aaron's shirt. "Now that the camp is secure," she said, "you're free to leave whenever you're ready. Is there anything I can—"

"No," Sam said quickly. "For God's sake, go get yourself taken care of."

"It was a good victory," Kel said. She rhymed off a long sentence in her own language that had the cadence of a ritual to it, then bowed her head and touched her fingers to her forehead. Then she added, "Now go with Aaron before you fall down."

Jean looked for a second like she was going to argue on the grounds of sheer obstinacy, but the mere act of drawing her next breath left her white as a sheet. "You may have a point," she wheezed. "But Sam and Clint are technically in line ahead of me."

Clint pulled a skeptical face. "Yeah… what are we in line for again?"

"I could write a book on all the ways this environment is unhealthy for humans," Aaron said. "If Kel and the Nyth hadn't figured out drug treatments for the worst of the effects, most of us would be dead by now."

" _All_ of you go," Natasha said. "Kel and I will start working on supplies for the mission."

Jean and Aaron jointly shuffled off, and the other two fell in beside them.

Natasha turned to Kel. "Funny — I thought Tony said that _you_ were the empathic healer."

"Only what Aaron taught me," Kel said. "I have more power than he does, but to use it to heal is natural for him, and very difficult for me."

"Unlike torture?"

"Yes, completely unlike this," Kel agreed. "I'm glad he can have the job now, and not pretend to be my assistant. Better for everyone."

Natasha noted the unselfconscious response, and filed it away for the time being.

Kel had been the medic on duty the night before, and had attended to Natasha's injuries (including the ones she'd inflicted herself) with competence and a light touch — a vivid contrast to the way she'd dispatched her foes just now. It took a certain amount of compartmentalization to switch between the two mindsets. Natasha added it to her list of Kel's known attributes, still awaiting assembly into a complete picture.

The next order of business was the rescue operation. It was going to take four days at minimum, and perhaps significantly longer, depending on how difficult it was to locate and lure a suitably distracting giant cat. There were rations to be gathered, weapons to be packed, and large amounts of intel to be shared. On a stealth mission, any and every detail about their environment could be critical.

"We should go someplace and talk provisions," Natasha said. "We've got a long trip ahead of us,"

"I have to clean my sword," Kel said. "Come with me?"

"Lead the way."

Natasha followed Kel back to the battlefield and, at her request, picked up Jean's discarded spear, while Kel retrieved her sword. It would be interesting to learn if Kel was as competent at woodcraft and covert infiltration as she was at swordplay. Natasha hoped so: they needed all the competence they could get. The takeover of the camp had run like clockwork. She doubted that they would get so lucky a second time.

 

* * *

 

Tony fumed as he walked. _That one's yours, Tony. I'm delegating, Tony_. Of all the arrogant…

Just because…

Just because it was _glaringly obvious_ why he had to be the one to talk to Alisha — why he was probably the only person on this entire godforsaken planet who knew exactly what she was going through…

Just because, if he'd been a little more attentive to current events and a little less fixated on the image of his torturer lying dead at his feet, he would have _volunteered_ to do this without having to be told…

Just because…

He'd lost track of his point.

(Kel had hinted that the previous night's double feature would come with consequences the next day, and she'd been right: he was utterly, _absurdly_ exhausted. It felt like his skull had been stuffed with cotton. Every input was taking a bit too long to register. If this trek led him out into the forest, he was probably going to walk into a tree.)

(Incidentally, they did have some kind of coffee-adjacent hot drink with the morning meal, which had carried him through the camp takeover but was now wearing off fast. Also, if there'd been no coffee on this planet then he absolutely would have been dead within the first week.)

(He'd lost track of his point again.)

_Anyway_. This was Jean's fault — _something_ was Jean's fault — and he was going to yell at her just as soon as she no longer had a gaping tear in her ribcage.

At least the problem of tracking Alisha was not overtaxing Tony's currently limited capabilities. She'd put as much distance as possible between herself and the sites of her handiwork, which had sent her south. At the camp border, she'd stopped and curled up beneath a tree, hugging her knees to her chest and looking miserable. She saw him coming, obviously, and appeared to debate whether she should flee again, but opted instead to stare past him like he wasn't there.

Right. Okay. This called for tact, and sensitivity, and probably other things that Tony was not famous for having, even when his brain was firing on all cylinders. He reached the tree (and did not walk into the tree) and sank to the ground beside her.

Alisha continued to pretend that she was alone in the universe. Tony waited awhile, just in case inspiration happened to strike. It didn't.

"It never bothered me that much," he said, hoping that this would lead somewhere useful. "Back in the day? They were just… engineering problems. Later, they were government contracts and profit for the company. If I thought about it at all, I figured, hey, it was the bad guys who were dying. I was making the good guys safer." His hand came up of its own accord and rested on his chest, where the scar sat. "If I'd felt it a little more back then, I wonder if some things wouldn't have been different."

Tony's meager offering sat there by itself for a long spell.

"It's not like I didn't know what was going to happen," Alisha said quietly. "She brought me so I could make bombs for her. That was the deal."

"Sure."

"And after what they did to us, they had it coming." She looked over at him. "Right?"

Tony nodded. "I'd say so, yeah."

"Yeah." Alisha shuddered. "So why do I feel like something inside me just rotted?"

There were things he could say that _wouldn't_ help, like: _You have the luxury of second thoughts because your life wasn't in immediate jeopardy. Try taking fire some time, and see how many qualms you have left._ Or: _The only thing you have on your conscience is killing the enemy. Talk to me once it's your friends lying dead because of you._

But all of that missed the point entirely.

"Because even when it's necessary," he said instead, "maybe it's not supposed to be easy."

"She wants mines next," Alisha said. "Mines and more bombs, so that when the alien army comes, we can kill all of them, too." She did that bashful ducking thing, which they were going to have to work on. "And yes, I know how ridiculous this conversation is, by the way. You're _Tony Stark_. She's probably about to replace me with you anyway."

"Not if she's smart," Tony said. "Look, if you _can't_ , then yeah, I'll do the job. But you've got twenty months of hands-on experience where I'd be starting from scratch. Doesn't make sense."

Softly, she asked, "What if I… can't?"

Tony knew that he was the wrong person to look to for healthy coping mechanisms, except perhaps as a study in negative space. Maybe… _probably_ he should encourage her to let him take over the weapons-building business. Less trauma for everyone that way.

Unless, of course, something went wrong.

It was in no small measure due to Alisha's work that the takeover had run so smoothly. Jean, handy as she was with a spear, could not have been in three places at once, nor could she and Kel have hoped to cut down twenty-five guards on their own. And they still had ten long months ahead. If they lost someone — if Alisha had to watch one of her friends die, knowing that she hadn't done all she could to keep them safe — _that_ guilt would be a hell of a lot harder to live with.

"Jean doesn't strike me as being into forced conscription," he said, feeling his way cautiously. "If you want out, that'll be the end of it. But the way I see it, protecting the people you care about is worth doing, even if it comes at a cost. Isn't it?"

By some miracle, it seemed like he'd struck the right angle, because Alisha started to uncurl a little. "That was why I came in the first place," she said. "Jean and the others were all flinging themselves into this ridiculously dangerous _thing_ , and…"

"And you wanted to give them the best possible chance of making it back out again."

"Right. Exactly."

"Sure."

Alisha let go of her knees and shifted to face him, cross-legged. "I know that today would have been a lot harder without… without my part," she said. "It was over fast, and _almost_ no one got hurt, except for…"

"Except for Jean and her completely unnecessary bit of showboating?"

"I _know_ , right?"

"Is she like this back home?"

"Oh my _God_."

They both rolled their eyes.

Alisha sobered quickly and looked down at her hands, where one thumb was working at the other palm. "I know we're all supposed to feel triumphant now," she said, "but… I _can't_. I just feel sick. Does that ever go away?"

Honesty popped out before he could stop it. "Not really," Tony said. "Or maybe it does and I just haven't… Actually, what usually happens to me is something even worse comes along that makes the first thing seem better in comparison, but…" She was looking at him with some alarm, and Tony hastily waved his hands. "Let me start again. Find ways you can help. Make a positive difference whenever you can. That's how you live with it."

She exhaled slowly. "I'll try." Her chin ducked down again. "Thanks, Mr. Stark."

"It's 'Tony'."

Well, he didn't think he'd screwed her up any worse, at least. Now he just had to refrain from ruining the moment by nodding off. Time to move this conversation someplace a little more active.

"You must have set up a lab somewhere, right?" he asked.

Alisha glanced past him, toward the processing center. "I, uh, blew it up."

"Ah." Tony shrugged. "Well, everyone does that eventually. Rite of passage. We'll just have to build you another one."

 

* * *

 

The three human members of the rescue team gathered at the west road.

Sam was still processing some of the things he'd seen. The giant Minotaur's giant broadsword had carved into Jean's side deep enough to gouge ribs. Back home, she would have needed the kind of medical intervention that was way above his pay grade.

Here, though, all it took was Aaron _concentrating_  for a while.

Of course Sam had offered his help once they'd reached the camp infirmary, although he'd been privately afraid that there wouldn't be much that he could do. That assessment had turned out to be accurate, just not the way he'd figured. Sam had seen some pretty weird shit over the past few years, but bone and tissue knitting itself back together before his eyes ranked _damn_ close to the top.

So… okay, that was a thing that Aaron could do. Awesome. Sam only had a few thousand follow-up questions. That brand of weirdness, however, had to be put on hold in favor of several days of Kel's brand of weirdness.

Once Sam and Clint had been cleared for travel, they'd caught up with Natasha, and had collectively done a double-take. That godawful brand across her face had faded to a modest scar, and the black eye and other injuries that she'd collected over the past couple of days had vanished completely.

Clint had pointed back at the infirmary in confusion. "Hang on, when did you…"

"I didn't. Kel's work."

"They can _both_ do that?"

"Looks that way."

Yeah — weirdness everywhere he turned.

At any rate, they'd packed their gear and headed to the road to wait. According to Natasha, Kel was off collecting water filters and would meet them shortly.

This was the first moment since Spider-Man had shown up that the adults had had any privacy. After discreetly checking that they were in fact alone, the three of them clustered together for a quick chat.

"So," said Clint. "Boss-Lady. Thoughts?"

"She's got some solid combat training in her background," Natasha said. "Which explains why she got the drop on you so easily."

Clint rolled his eyes. "Other thoughts?"

"It was a solid mission plan, well executed."

"Really?" Sam said. "Even the last part?"

Natasha shrugged. "Her authority here is based entirely on reputation. It was a calculated risk in order to demonstrate her commitment and her skills. Plus—" she touched the scar on her face "—the actual risks were somewhat less than they might have appeared."

Sam would have described it as a damned foolhardy stunt, himself, but he supposed Natasha had a point.

"And she's the one giving the orders," Clint said. "We all picked up on that, right?"

"You good with that?" Sam asked.

"If it's stuff I was gonna do anyway. You think Steve'll be good with it?"

Sam had to chuckle. Whoever had decided to call Captain America the perfect soldier clearly hadn't noticed the part where the man was allergic to doing as he was told. "Let's get him back from the giant scorpions first. Then we'll have a couple days to break it to him gently."

Natasha's eyes flicked over Sam's shoulder, and they put the conversation on hold. Kel was inbound, with a pack on her shoulders like the rest of them and a sword on her hip… _not_ like the rest of them. Jean, fully healed and wearing a clean shirt, was with her.

"How long do you expect to be gone?" Jean asked Kel.

"Six days at least," Kel said. "Maybe more."

"All right. On the sixth morning, I'm sending someone after you."

"If we're dead, you shouldn't waste more resources to learn it."

"Kel, grant me my quaint human customs," Jean said. "Six days. Then you're getting backup whether you want it or not."

In what must have been the equivalent of a handshake in Kel's culture, they each held up a fist and tapped the backs of their wrists together.

"Good luck," Jean said to the rest of the team. "Please give Captain Rogers my regards. I look forward to meeting him."

"Yeah, we're all looking forward to that," Clint said.

Natasha said to Kel, "You're the guide. Which way are we headed?"

"West, then south," she said. "For the first day, we can follow the road. After that, I think there is less danger that we will be seen if we go through the forest."

Good enough for a start, at least. Now they had the next two days to learn everything they could about the environment and the enemy — and also their new ally. Weirdnesses aside, they were all in this together now.

Kel stepped out onto the road. Sam and the rest of the team followed.

 


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for animal attack and animal death.

Sam wasn't sure if this was the sort of thing he was supposed to point out, but… "Kel, your pack is twitching."

She grabbed one of her shoulder straps and gave it a shake. "Yes. Only a little."

Okay.

They'd been walking for about two hours. The dirt road had forked south a mile outside of the prison camp, and since then it had taken on a shallow but steady downward slope. The weather was decent for cross-country hiking: sunny, a faint breeze, not too hot. Sam estimated that they were on pace to make a twenty-mile day.

Kel spent most of her time on point, but every so often she nipped off into the forest. Normally she was only out of sight for a few minutes, returning empty-handed with vague comments about 'things to check'. Her most recent jaunt, however, had taken considerably longer, and she'd come back with whatever the hell kind of creature was now stuffed into her pack.

Maybe lunch would be served fresh.

The walk so far had done nothing to substantiate Kel's earlier claims that the poor, hapless humans couldn't possibly make the journey on their own. They'd seen a grand total of zero animals, dangerous or otherwise. Sure, occasionally there was a rustling in the foliage that was too localized to be caused by the wind, or a chirp or a chitter from somewhere in the distance, but whatever wildlife was about, it was shy enough to give the rescue party a wide berth.

Sam hadn't seen any birds, oddly enough. On this planet, that particular evolutionary niche seemed to have gone unfilled.

Natasha drew up alongside Kel. "We're making good time," she said. "Any idea how far behind the convoy we are?"

"Very far," Kel said. "They walked through the night. Get to the outpost before sunset today."

Sam grimaced. That meant Steve would be in the hands of these… Nyth things for an entire day, plus however much time it took them to arrange their diversion.

"Steve could still escape on his own," said Clint. "He's been known to do that."

Kel glanced over her shoulder, and Sam was pretty sure she was about to reject the possibility out of hand. However, she pulled back at the last second.

"Maybe," she said instead. "It would make our job harder. But our job will be hard anyway."

They'd hiked for another ten minutes or so when, for no obvious reason, Kel signaled a halt.

"Do you see it?" she asked.

Sam scanned the terrain ahead of them for anything that could pose a threat, but nothing jumped out at him. There were no suspicious bumps or indentations in the dirt road. There was nothing lurking in the trees. Not for the first time, he wished he had his tactical goggles: magnification and an IR scan would have sure come in handy.

Clint took a few slow steps forward. "Yeah, I do," he said, his eyes narrowed. "Lots of threads crossing the road, all the way up to the top of the canopy. They're almost clear, like spider silk." He looked slowly to one side, then the other. "There's more of them between the trees, too."

"Yes," said Kel. "That's the barrier."

Sam nearly squinted himself cross-eyed, and… okay, _maybe_ there was something hovering in the air about fifteen feet ahead of them. It was nothing more than a faint shimmer, drifting in and out of focus. He would never have spotted it if he hadn't been looking.

Kel crouched down and opened up her pack, and Sam finally saw the source of the twitching. The animal was basically oppossum-like, with grey fur and a narrow face, although it had six legs for some damned reason. Kel hauled it out by the scruff of the neck, and it whipped its tail at her and hissed.

The rest of the team backed away hastily. Kel paced forward and tossed the oppossum out onto the road. It shook itself out and hissed again, then made a run for it.

Tried, anyway. Suddenly it pulled up short and began to thrash like it was caught in a net. The more it struggled, the more the invisible filaments seemed to tighten, until the poor animal was lifted right off the ground.

There was a sound like a guitar string snapping, and a sudden splash of red.

Bits of oppossum landed _everywhere_.

"Well, shit," said Clint.

"They move toward heat, wrap around, and pull," Kel said. "Extremely strong, and they repair quickly. A full-grown kethysh could push its way through. Not much else."

"We didn't cross anything like this on the way in," Natasha said. "The camp can't be completely surrounded."

"The barrier line goes straight west from here," said Kel. "It ends at the ravine, then starts again north of the bridge, and finishes the circle. Possible to go around, but it would take almost another day."

"How do we get through?"

Kel walked slowly forward until she was within the oppossum's blast radius.

"Careful," Clint said. "They're drifting toward you."

She stopped, and pointed to a tree at the side of the road. "Do you see, just below the branch, the dark thing?"

Now that he had a rough vicinity to look in, Sam spotted the incongruity almost immediately. "Yeah, it looks like someone glued a hockey puck to the bark," he said. Kel looked blank, and he added, "A thick circular disk, about eight feet up."

"Yes, that's it." Kel drew her sword. "Press with something metal, on both sides, and the lines draw back for a short time. It has to be metal — something constructed, yes? Not just pressure. This way an animal doesn't open it by accident."

Between Kel and Nat, there was no question that they had enough blades for the job. However, even with the added reach of the sword, either one of them would have to walk right up to the tree and stretch in order to reach the disk. The configuration struck Sam as a little too risky.

"Just a thought," he said, "but maybe the two of us with the height advantage should do it."

Kel arched an assessing sort of eyebrow, but reversed her grip and proffered the hilt of her sword to him. Then she reached into her pack and produced a machete, which she handed to Clint.

Sam had seen swords before in a ceremonial context, but this was the first time he'd handled one that was intended for use in combat. It was surprisingly light, and balanced easily in his hand. The grip was wrapped in leather that was soft from extensive handling. Neither the pommel nor the blade bore any kind of decoration — which, he supposed, shouldn't have been such a surprise. It wasn't like he pasted gemstones onto his Steyr SPPs, after all. Still, he'd been privately hoping for something a little more _Lord of the Rings_.

It wasn't until Sam had gotten within a few feet of the filaments that he was reliably able to spot them. They were _incredibly_ fine. He had no idea how they could have been strong enough to slice the oppossum to bits.

Close up, the disk turned out to be dark brown rather than black, but other than that it still looked like a hockey puck. The filaments emanated from the center of the disk and fanned out in the air. Now that he knew what he was looking for, he spotted more disks that had been placed higher up the trunk of the tree.

Once Sam could see the filaments, he could also see that they were on both sides of the tree, and they were floating in his direction. He very carefully aimed himself directly at the tree trunk, coming no closer than he had to in order to reach the disk with the end of the blade.

Clint had likewise gotten himself into position on the other side of the road. "What happens to the two of us holding the door open?" he asked.

"Move back to the center of the road and walk quickly," Kel said. "There's time, but not a lot."

Clint caught his eye. Sam gave a nod, and both of them reached up with their respective weapons.

There was another sharp twanging sound. The filaments collapsed into a tight bundle and were sucked into the disk. Nat and Kel crossed the boundary line at a brisk walk, and Sam and Clint were hard on their heels.

Once they were all safely across, Sam took a careful look at the terrain. If for some reason he ever had to find this place by himself, he wanted to be damned sure he recognized it. There was a stand of birch-like trees at the edge of the road to the east; opposite them, a fallen log had been overrun by moss and ivy. He fixed the image in his mind.

"Question," Clint said. "If we're overdue and Jean decides to send backup, are they going to walk right into that thing?"

"I brought Jean here before. She knows the danger and how to get past it. If nothing else, she will know to tell your metal one to walk in front."

Kel took her sword back, and moved the machete and its sheath from her pack to her hip.

"The barrier keeps most of the dangers out," she continued. "There will be another when we get close to the outpost. This—" she pointed back the way they'd come "—was boring. The rest will not be. From now on, always be ready to draw a weapon."

 

* * *

 

Tony stepped carefully through the wreckage that now constituted the only way in or out of the processing facility — _not_ tripping this time — and promptly forgot what he'd been on his way to do.

_Wagon_. Get a wagon from out by the mine, so that they could haul away some of the larger pieces of trash. That was it.

He was so exhausted, it was _ridiculous_. Damned sedatives, and… and opposite things. Stimulants. Damned bioengineer giant alien scorpions. Damned—

"Jean!" Tony pulled up short when she materialized in front of him. "What are you doing here?" Wherever _here_ was. Where was— the _mine_. Yes. En route to the mine.

"I was looking for you," she said. "Thank you for talking to Alisha. How is she?"

"Well, let's just say I don't think she has a future in the arms trade." Tony shrugged. "She's working through it."

"I'm sure she appreciates your perspective."

Jean paused, like she thought Tony was going to say something else. Tony scrambled for something else to say, but before he could muster up a second sentence, she'd moved on.

"And the cleanup? Any problems so far?"

He shook his head. "Just time-consuming. It'll take days to rebuild the building. Right now we're separating the junk from the equipment that can be salvaged, making sure the chemical stores are intact, that sort of thing."

It wasn't just Tony and Alisha on cleanup detail, of course. Jean had assigned the group that habitually worked in processing to the job, plus another ten or so from the mine. Tony didn't know this crowd particularly well, but Alisha obviously did. The two of them had met up with the woman who'd been giving instructions, whose name was… okay, apparently Tony was going to have to get all of these names again. Anyway, Supervisor Lady and Tony had taken one look at each other and reached an instantaneous agreement _not_ to let Alisha go into the building until the corpses — or, as Jean had so delicately put it, _organic debris_ — had been cleared away.

That job, like every other damned thing on this ridiculous planet, was done with a plant. Tony and Alisha had been dispatched to pick up composter pods from Aaron, at the greenhouse. Oh — and apparently they had a greenhouse. Speaking of ridiculous, Tony had lived in this camp for ten months, and there were still parts of it he'd never seen before.

Aaron had handed them two metal buckets of spiky green pods the size of baseballs, and had issued a stern warning only to handle them with tongs. The spikeballs were unnervingly efficient: once placed, each one would slowly melt into enough thick green slime to coat an entire dead Minotaur. In the space of a few hours, the slime hardened and contracted into a pile of clumps that could be cleared away with a shovel, leaving behind only whatever metal had been on the body.

At a guess, the spikeballs housed bacteria cultures that had been designed to trigger a highly accelerated decomposition process, while the rest of the material formed layers that absorbed the various byproducts. Cute.

Tony abruptly realized that Jean had said something. "Sorry, what?"

"I just said that I'm pleased to hear that the work is going smoothly," she said.

"Oh. Right, yeah, we're fine." Wagon. He was supposed to be fetching a wagon. "Anything else?"

Jean took a breath. "Yes, actually. Tony, you and I need to have a somewhat awkward conversation."

Tony took one look at her expression, and his stomach plummeted to his boots. She looked tentative. Almost _nervous_. Tony had seen that very same look on Kel the night before, when she'd been acting like the wrong word was going to make him bolt.

There was only one _awkward conversation_ he could think of that would cause Jean to react that way. Kel had told her. Kel had _fucking_ told her, and now she felt like she had to _manage the problem_.

The sharp cold shock of betrayal quickly shifted into anger. "She had _no_ business putting you up to this," Tony snarled. "I don't care how alien she is, that was a private conversation and she should have damned well known it! What did she tell you, anyway? That I'm _unstable_? That you need to keep an eye on me in case I go to pieces?"

"Tony—"

"No, you know what, this is _bullshit_! Just because I have one off night doesn't mean I can't do my job — and by the way, _you_ weren't exactly the paragon of equilibrium last night either, or did _that_ private conversation slip your mind already?"

"I take it 'she' is referring to Kel?"

How fucking disingenuous— " _Yes_ , Kel! One hand, five scars, big mouth, can't miss her!"

Then, because this and quite possibly every universe hated him, Jean said, "Kel did not discuss you with me in any capacity."

Tony opened his mouth. Closed it again. His face went so hot he was pretty sure he was about to catch fire.

His brain, still stuck in first gear, helpfully replayed Jean's initial sentence for him. The conclusion that had been so rock-solid a moment ago suddenly looked a little… tenuous.

"Oh," he finally managed.

This would have been an _excellent_ moment for a bolt of lightning or a random falling anvil to put him out of his misery. Tony waited. No such luck.

"So, um," he said. "Did I completely misconstrue your meaning just now?"

"I think so, yes," Jean said.

Sinkhole. Laboratory explosion. Giant leopard. Nothing. "Oh."

"Can we start again?"

He rubbed his eyes. He was more tired than it should have been physically possible for a person to be. "Yeah, let's, if you don't mind."

" 'Tony, you and I need to have a somewhat awkward conversation,' " Jean said.

" 'I can't imagine what that might concern,' " Tony replied, dying by inches. " 'Do elaborate.' "

"We alluded to this last night, but just to make it formal: assuming you're willing, I'd like to move you out of the mine and over to weapons manufacturing, permanently."

Well, that wasn't so hard. "Yeah, of course," Tony said. "Why would that be a problem?"

"I didn't think it would be," Jean said. "The manufacturing department now consists of you and Alisha, plus such assistants as you both see fit." She got that tentative look on her face again. "Tony, your reputation precedes you, of course. If there are innovations or improvements that you can make, then yes, these things should be done. However, I would ask you to keep in mind that for the past twenty months, Alisha has been working undercover, alone, at considerable personal risk. I want you to work _with_ her, not to take over from her."

Ah. This wasn't the 'I assume you're too damaged to be useful' conversation, it was the 'I assume you're going to be an asshole to your colleagues' conversation. If nothing else, Tony could now be offended for the correct reason.

"I see," he said tightly. "So you figured my natural inclination would be, what, to sweep in and demote her to bottle-washer?"

At least Jean had the grace to look abashed. "Nothing so extreme. But I did feel that I owed it to her to raise the issue with you. I don't want to see her overrun on projects that she founded."

"As shocking as everyone always finds this, I _am_ capable of working in a collaboration," Tony said. "But fine. You did your job, your concerns are noted, I promise not to steal the other kids' toys. Is that it?"

"Yes," she said. But Tony had barely started to take a step when she added, "Actually, wait a moment. I will selectively recall one detail from the discarded draft of our conversation. Did your talk with Kel, of which I have no knowledge, happen to involve taking a second dose of the stimulant last night?"

His brain jammed up between issuing a reflexive denial and wanting to know how she'd known that, leaving his mouth with nothing but vowel sounds.

"Nevermind," Jean said, with a hint of a smile. "It obviously did. You look exhausted. Go to bed."

Tony blinked. "Um… what?"

"Go to bed," Jean repeated. "I've used two patches in one night before. The next day is brutal. We're managing fine here. Go get some more sleep."

After all that talk about sleep and beds and so forth, _anyone_ would have yawned. Simple power of suggestion.

The part where he staggered and nearly fell over was a bit harder to explain.

Tony pried his eyes open again and reestablished which way was up. Then he caught Jean's expression, and sighed. "I don't have a leg left to stand on, do I."

"No."

He turned. Paused.

"That way," Jean said, pointing.

"Yep. Knew that."

Two steps later, he reversed course. "No, wait, I can't. I was doing something. I was…" He'd _just_ had this. "Wagon. From the mine. That's where I was going."

"Of course," Jean said. "That's a good idea. I'll take care of it. You go to bed."

Two steps. Stop. Reverse. "No, I have to check on Peter first. Where—"

"He's out by the kitchen," Jean said. "He helped to fill the water reservoirs, and now he's bringing in lumber to repair the building. I was just there. He's fine."

Tony must have lost the thread for a second, because he suddenly found that Jean had become rather firmly attached to his arm. After some experimental tugging that accomplished nothing, he gave up and let her steer.

"You did good work today."

He eyed that sentence warily, looking for the catch. "And?"

She looked at him, and her brow furrowed. "I'm afraid my capacity to offer tangible rewards is somewhat limited. Is there something—"

" _No_ , that's not—" Tony flapped his free hand in frustration. "I thought you were softening me up for something. Sorry."

"No, that was the entirety of the thought. We don't seem to be communicating well."

"No, not so much. I'm a little tired."

"Mm."

Some hazy amount of time later, Jean opened the door to Tony's dorm and guided him inside.

"I think I can take it from here," he said. "Unless you were planning on reading me a bedtime story."

"You'd be asleep before I got two words in," she countered, still guiding him by the arm. "I'll send Peter to wake you for lunch. Sound reasonable?"

Tony nodded, and sank down onto the sad little mattress that had become his home. "Hey, here's a thought for the beta site: private rooms."

"It's on the list," Jean said.

"Also, better food."

"Under development."

"How about—"

" _Tony_."

He succumbed to another jaw-cracking yawn (imagery… not awesome), and didn't so much lie down as tip over. The last thing he remembered was Jean draping a blanket over him, then sleep descended.

 

* * *

 

"Mr. Stark?"

_Ugh… already?_   Tony dragged one eye open, and found Peter — or, at least, the Spider-Man outfit — leaning over him.

"Yeah, I'm up," Tony said, in the face of considerable evidence to the contrary. "I'm up. Just give me a second. Lunchtime?"

"Sort of. Most people ate already. Jean said to let you sleep a while longer."

By dint of heroic effort, Tony managed to lever himself upright, and the cobwebs slowly started to clear. Maybe he felt a _little_ less like death warmed over. Still, he decided to hold off a couple minutes before tackling the job of standing up.

This was the first time he'd been alone with Peter since the kid had arrived. Their last conversation had not gone well, to say the least. Now that Tony wasn't quite so close to coming unglued himself, it was time he gave it another try.

He patted the bed next to him. "Have a seat, kid. And do me a favor, will you? Take the mask off."

"How come?"

"Because I had this dream that Peter Parker was safe on Earth and you were an android who'd stolen his voiceprint. Just… humor me."

Peter sat down cautiously, and peeled the mask off his face. Not an android. Just a fifteen-year-old boy who looked scared half out of his wits. Which was the correct and accurate response to the situation, except Tony was pretty sure that he wasn't scared of being killed horribly by a giant scorpion so much as he was scared of getting yelled at again.

"What do you think of the place so far?" Tony asked.

Peter checked out the dorm, which consisted of twenty cots and bare walls. "You've lived here for ten months?"

"Uh-huh."

"It's not really what I expected." He looked down at his hands. "And the fighting wasn't what I expected, either. I guess… Ms. Romanoff did try to tell me that."

"Uh-huh."

"Are you still mad?"

_Yes. Ninety-five percent at myself._ But continuing to browbeat the kid over something that couldn't be changed would be worse than useless. Tony could be better than that.

He clapped Peter on the shoulder. "When we get home," he said, "you and I are going to have a _lengthy_ conversation about the differences between jobs you take on and jobs you do not. There will be a quiz at the end. Refresher courses as needed. Until then, what do you say we both stay focused on getting home in one piece. Deal?"

Peter sagged in relief. "Deal," he said. But then something else must have crossed his mind, because he turned nervous again almost immediately. "Um. Can I ask you something?"

_Can I ask you a question_ and all its variants were right up there with _Are you okay_ on Tony's list of opening lines that led nowhere good. "What is it?"

"This morning… why did Jean ask you if you wanted to kill that huge Minotaur guy?"

Tony winced. While he'd appreciated Jean's intentions, he also could have done without that little drama playing out in front of the entire camp.

He cut the story back to the PG-13 version, which didn't leave much. "This was a labor camp," he said in clipped tones. "The Minos were the overseers. A while back, I broke the rules. There were consequences. It got a bit ugly. She was offering me payback."

Peter nodded slowly. "But you didn't."

No. And not even because Peter had been watching, which would have been the responsible, adult reaction. In that moment, Tony had been… elsewhere.

Part of him had been strung up by the wrists all over again. _That_ part had wanted blood.

The rest of him, though, had remembered Siberia, and how payback had gone for him the last time he'd tried it. He'd remembered telling Kel about it the night before, and her response — still baffling to him — that he didn't kill with his hands. She was wrong, Tony was quite certain… but he'd found himself unwilling to put it to the test.

"He was already dead," Tony said. "They all were. We won, they lost. Better to move on."

And that, he decided, was more than enough of _that_. Tony stood up and stretched, and the kid followed his lead.

"Did you eat yet?" Tony asked.

"No," said Peter. "I waited for you."

"Then let's go."

There. One reasonably successful conversation under his belt. Two, if his earlier chat with Alisha counted, and Tony decided that it did.

Peter pulled his mask back on before they reached the door, and Tony couldn't resist.

"Seriously, your plan was to wear the suit for three hundred straight days?"

"Yes!" the kid said. "I'm _Spider-Man_. This is what Spider-Man wears."

"Well. Lucky for you, I have an excellent drycleaner."

 

* * *

 

Sam pressed himself a little tighter to the base of the tree and tried not to breathe too loudly. The… _thing_ , whatever the hell it was, made a low rattling noise as it moved, and the sound raised the hairs on the back of his neck. That rattle was a warning in any universe, and it was _close_.

He'd caught his only glimpse of the monster when it had cleared the gap between one side of the dirt road and the other in a single leap, more than fifty feet above his head. Sunlight had glinted off an armored body. Splayed out in the air had been too many legs with too many joints. It had crashed into a tree and vanished into the dense leaves of the upper canopy.

Kel, always a fount of good news, had informed them that it could keep pace with them for hours, waiting to strike as soon as they stopped to rest.

The rattle grew closer still. The monster picked its way from one branch to the next, dropping down through the layers of the canopy and closing in on Sam's hiding spot. Shadows shifted as its weight caused branches to sway, and little fragments of bark fluttered to the ground in front of him.

Sam looked up.

Compound eyes. Heavy foreclaws. A pair of fangs uncurling.

One of its eyes suddenly sprouted the shaft of an arrow. Sam flung himself out from cover just as the monster crashed to the ground. It rolled onto its back, legs curling up toward its body, and went still.

"Nice shot," Kel called to Clint as she stepped out from the other side of the tree. "I didn't think that would work."

Sam decided to ignore that remark. "Okay, the whole bait situation?" he announced. "Someone else is doing it next time."

The fallen… whatever-the-hell was about the size of a mountain lion (although it had looked a lot bigger when it had been poised to tear Sam's face off). Each of its many legs ended in a tripod of claws, the better for gripping tree branches. Patches of loose, overlapping scales at its knees must have caused the rattle. The foreclaws and the armored body were a bit more crab-like than spider-like, but the eyes and the fangs and the legs? Those were pure Shelob territory.

It wasn't an original thought, but… _You're one ugly motherfucker._

Clint hopped down from his perch a couple of trees over. Natasha, who had been lying in wait with Kel, slid the machete back into the sheath that she now wore on her belt, and joined Sam in his contemplation of the monster.

"If you think about it," she said, "arachnids play the same role on this planet that primates do on Earth, which makes that thing essentially a chimpanzee."

Sam and Clint slowly turned to look at her.

"Glad we cleared that up," Clint said.

Kel, sword still in hand, walked around to the thing's face and started… oh lord, she started hacking its fangs off.

"The chim-pan-zee… is this what you want to call it?"

"No," Sam said firmly. "It is _not_ a chimpanzee, and why are you doing that?"

"Pretty sure it's a chimpanzee," said Clint.

"The chimpanzee carries interesting venom," Kel said. "A mix of nerve poisons and tissue poisons. For a healthy human, if you were stung on an arm or leg, it probably wouldn't be fatal, just incredibly painful. Of course, it would eat you, and that would be fatal, but not the sting." She dropped the two fangs on the ground, and wiped her sword on the grass. "But you would lose the limb. Better not to be stung."

"Don't get stung by a chimpanzee," Sam said. "We got the message. And again, _why_ are you doing that?"

She blinked at him in surprise. "I want the venom," she said, like it should have been obvious. "It was about to sting, so the fangs are full, yes? The next time we stop, I'll paint one of my knives with it. But we should move away from here. Scavengers will come soon."

She wrapped her incredibly gross trophy in some off-white sheets that looked a bit like cheesecloth, and stowed them in her pack. Once she was out of the way, Clint retrieved his arrow, which was also gross but at least made sense from a resource management perspective.

To make sure that the… goddammit… the _chimpanzee_ had gone for Sam, the other three had ostentatiously drawn weapons and gone ahead together, while he'd limped along behind, playing the weak member of the herd. Once he'd lost sight of them, he'd had to trust that Clint would get into position in time, and that Kel and Nat would circle back around to cover him in case an arrow through the chimp's eye didn't do the job.

Obviously it had taken Clint's expert marksmanship to make the kill shot. But it also hadn't hurt that Kel always knew exactly where the chimp and the rest of the team were, without needing lines of sight. She'd predicted the direction of its approach exactly.

"So, this extra sense of yours," Sam said to her once they were back on the road. "I'm not even sure what to call it."

"Jean says that the closest human word is 'empathy', but whenever she says this, she also says that it isn't quite right." Kel shrugged. "Close enough, I think."

"Can you tell us more about how it works?"

"I feel the sensation from other living bodies," she said. "I know where you are, how you are about to move, how you are put together. Useful in combat, to predict the enemy's attack and see their vulnerabilities." She looked him briskly up and down. "You had stress fractures in both legs. Multiple falls, I think. There is weakness still in the bone. This is where I would strike to disable."

And there went the hairs on the back of his neck again. "Okay," Sam said carefully, "setting aside the part where you don't _ever_ do that again… do you pick up that much detail on everyone?"

"This close? Yes. At larger distances, or for simpler animals, it becomes less."

"What's your range?"

Kel smiled ruefully. "Your numbers are different and your lengths are different. I don't know how to say it."

"Fair point," Sam admitted. "Compared with the camp, then."

"From any part of it, I'm aware of all of it, and some distance outside."

Clint asked, "How do you deal with big crowds?"

"It annoys," Kel said, "but there are ways to control the amount of information. The sense develops in late childhood. Very weak at first. Takes years to mature. The brain adjusts."

She signaled a halt, and turned to face the group. "Now I try to remember how to do things the human way," she said. "For example: listen."

At first, Sam only heard the usual background noises. The rustling of leaves from high above them as the air moved through the forest canopy. The occasional distant animal cry. Nothing noteworthy.

Except… no, the rustling wasn't just from random breezes. There was a note underneath that didn't change, even when a small gust picked up. It was coming from the east, from the very top of the canopy. And Sam was pretty sure it was getting closer.

Natasha turned to face east. Obviously she'd caught it as well. "There's something up in the trees," she said. "Moving toward us slowly."

"Yes," Kel said.

"Another chimpanzee?" Clint asked.

"No. Not as dangerous. At least, not in the day. A large problem at night. Do you remember the barrier?"

"Yeah," said Clint. "It was memorable."

"This is the animal that grows the lines. It hides in the trees, and the lines hang down. Prey walks through, gets caught, pulled up, cut into pieces, eaten slowly. Usually it will wait, not chase. But if it caught something our size, it could live for weeks. Worth the effort, yes?"

"So we have a new stalker."

Kel also looked east, and her eyes narrowed.. "That one… I think will take the dead chimpanzee instead. But there will be more. They hide very well. At night, they are almost invisible. Makes it dangerous to walk through the trees. But if one is close enough to be heard, also dangerous to stay still."

Sam wasn't altogether successful at repressing a shudder. Those filaments had been easy to overlook in broad daylight. At night, even Clint's eyes didn't stand a chance.

"But you can pick them out without sight or sound, right?" he said to Kel.

"Enough not to walk into one, at least," she said. "They're very simple animals. Hard to track over larger distances. I don't run at night, unless something much worse is behind me."

On that cheerful note, they set off again.

Less than a mile later, the team found themselves at the top of a steep hill. The dirt road became a switchback, but they cut straight down the slope. At the base of the hill, they stopped to rest and eat — all but Kel, who set down her gear and promptly wandered off again. Her side trips had grown more frequent since they'd crossed the barrier, and she still hadn't offered an explanation.

On a multi-day march like this one, rest was critical. What seemed like an easy pace the first day could turn grueling the next. Once Kel got back, Sam was going to have a word with her about not burning herself out.

Natasha took a long drink from her canteen, and leaned back against the side of the hill. "So are we all having fun yet?" she asked.

"Sure, it's been a blast," Clint said. "Easy terrain, clear weather, chimpanzees. And I heard this was supposed to be tough."

Sam chuckled. The forest had its dangers, no doubt about it, but it hadn't exactly been an unrelenting deathtrap.

"At some point, if we can get our local guide to sit still long enough—" Clint shot an irritated look over his shoulder "— we need to start hashing out plans for the rescue portion of this rescue op."

Natasha tilted her head noncommittally. "There's only so much we can do until we've actually seen the outpost."

"True, but at least she can tell us more about these giant jaguars of yours. Like how hard it'll be to find one, and if this planet has any catnip."

"Or," Sam added, "if there's another predator in the area — I'm just throwing this out there — that _isn't_ a twenty-four-foot jaguar."

"It can't just be any predator," said Natasha. "It has to be something capable of eating a grown man and not leaving remains."

"They grow 'em pretty big on this planet," Sam said. "I'm just saying, we should ask. Besides, it sounded like these kethysh things aren't all that close by. What if tracking and luring one ends up taking another week?"

He didn't have to voice the next sentence. They were all thinking it. _Steve could be dead by then_.

Then Natasha sat up sharply. "Guys — inbound."

Sam heard the noise a second later, and jumped to his feet with a knife in hand. Something was approaching them from up the slope, and fast. It sounded like…

Like Kel and some kind of heavily armored reptile were rolling down the hillside.

They tumbled one over the other, helpless in the grip of gravity. It had its claws sunk into her back, and she had both arms braced beneath its jaw. They struck a tree and rebounded, and spilled out onto the road.

The impact jolted them apart. Kel sprang to her feet — Clint cursed as she blocked his line of fire — and aimed a pointless open-handed slap at the creature's muzzle. Her hand glanced off harmlessly, and its answering snap missed her forearm by a hair.

Take a komodo dragon. Scale it up fifty percent. Add an extra set of legs. Cover it in thick grey-green plates of armor, and stick a bunch of spikes to its tail. That was what they were looking at. It was bleeding from its belly, but whatever injury it had sustained sure didn't seem to be slowing it down. It lunged for Kel again and she dodged to the side.

Sam took aim at a gap between plates and drove in with his knife, but pulled up hard when the dragon took a swipe at him with its tail. The spikes came in at thigh-height. Missed. He lunged again ahead of the counter-swing and buried his knife in its flank.

It barely seemed to notice. He had to leap over the incoming tail swipe — too slow, and pain flashed as one of the spikes clipped his ankle. He tucked and rolled, found his feet again (bruises, no damage) and drew a second knife.

Rapidfire _twang-THUD_ s sounded as Clint peppered the dragon with arrows. Nat's machete, now bloodstained, flicked across its side and opened up another tear between the plates of its armor. No effect.

Kel slapped it in the face again.

It really didn't like that. The dragon raced forward on all sixes, mouth agape. Kel backpedaled — Sam suddenly noticed that she had her eyes closed — and raised her right arm in front of her. The dragon took the bait and snapped, and she dodged, pivoted, and swatted with her left.

This time, instead of cuffing it across the muzzle, she was close enough to reach the top of its head. She hooked her fingers down and in, and pierced its eyes.

The dragon froze in her grip. Kel leaned in, wrapping her other arm beneath its jaw, and forced its head to the ground. It didn't struggle. It _couldn't_ struggle. Now that she'd jacked into its nervous system, the battle was utterly one-sided. When Kel straightened up again, it was dead.

It was the first time Sam had seen her powers at work for more than just passive detection. _That_ was what she'd done to Steve.

For a moment, she looked every bit as alien and hostile as the dragon she'd just killed.

Then Sam caught ahold of himself. She'd been protecting them, and she'd nearly been clawed to pieces over it. He slid the knife back into its sheath and hurried to her side.

Kel still had her eyes closed. Some kind of slime had been spattered across her face

"Don't touch it," she said, almost before Sam had begun to reach out his hand. "It burns the skin. Get cloths from my pack. Careful of the fangs."

Natasha was already on it. She passed a few of the sheets to Sam, who handed them over.

Kel carefully cleaned off her face. The gunk left behind bright red chemical burns. She tossed the first sheet, then folded up the second and held it to her eyes.

"We need to irrigate your eyes," Sam told her. "And after that, you'd better let me take a look at your back."

"My back is fine," she said. "I wish my clothes were this easy to fix. The eyes, yes. Not water. I brought something."

Sam guided her back to her gear. She started to reach with the right hand she didn't have, and caught herself with a frustrated growl.

"I'll get it," Sam said. "What am I looking for?"

"Large box. Then container, top and left."

"What happened to your sword?" Natasha asked.

"In the body." Kel made a sharp noise of disgust, and added something venomous-sounding in her native language. "I missed the heart. A child's mistake."

Which left Sam wondering what the hell her childhood had been like.

Between them, Clint and Nat rolled the dragon onto its side. Natasha reached into its belly wound, and extracted the sword full-length from the carcass. She also retrieved Sam's first knife. Then she and Clint started prying his arrows free. He'd fired at least a dozen.

"Resilient fuckers," Clint muttered, which was putting it mildly.

Meanwhile, Sam opened the wooden box that was clearly Kel's first-aid kit, and removed the jar that she'd indicated. There was a cream-colored salve inside.

"Okay, let's see those eyes," he said.

"I can do it," Kel said.

"I can see what I'm doing."

"I know where I am, and where you are, at least as well as you do." But she stopped fussing and uncovered her face.

Sam cleaned his hands thoroughly, then spread a thick layer of the salve over the burns as per her instructions. If the process was painful at all, she didn't show it.

"Better," she said afterward. "Pointless to heal skin that will just be burned again. Thank you."

"Don't mention it."

Kel cleaned her face off one final time, and opened her eyes. They seemed to be uninjured. Even as Sam watched, the redness and blistering began to fade from her skin.

Next, she took off her field jacket and laid it across her knees. Her fight with the dragon had left a constellation of punctures in the back.

Clint tossed down the bundle of arrows, then he and Natasha took a seat nearby.

"Here, gimme that," he said to Kel.

"I want to fix the holes."

"I've got twice as many fingers as you do. Bet I can do it twice as fast."

She arched one eyebrow dubiously, but did as he asked. He unpacked his repair kit and threaded a needle.

"You're sure your back doesn't need attention?" Sam asked.

She turned the eyebrow on him. "I healed when it let me go. Really, this wasn't difficult. You don't need to…" She trailed off, and looked around at the rest of the team. Sam could see it finally begin to dawn on her that they were about to have a conversation. "Your reactions are wrong, and I don't understand why."

Natasha took the lead. "Is this what you've been doing every time you left the road?" she asked. "Killing things that were coming after us?"

"Yes, of course. The ones I could reach first, at least. When they come through the trees, it's harder." Kel took another look at their faces, and somehow decided that it was the food chain they were having problems with. "Most things that are warm-blooded are either small and fast, or too big to be easy prey. We're in between. _Everything_ hunts us."

"Yeah, just a _little_ bit wide of the point, there," said Clint, not looking up from his stitching.

"Why didn't you tell us?" Nat asked.

"There was no danger."

Sam jerked his chin in the direction of the dead dragon. "Not sure I'd call _that_ 'no danger'."

Kel turned to him sharply, but her protest died unspoken. "All right," she admitted. "This was done badly. I shouldn't have let it get so close to you. A mistake. It won't happen again."

"That's still not the issue," Natasha said. "The three of us are not cargo. It's not your job to safeguard us. We should be using the next two days to learn how to function as a unit. That means we all take on our share of the risks. You need to stop hiding the dangers from us and let us help you."

Kel gave a faint sigh. "Last night, some of you were angry when I said things like this, so I'm sorry. But I am not human, and I can do things you can't. If your plan is still to use a kethysh to disguise the escape, then yes, _this_ will take all of us together. I should do most of the work now, because I _can_ , so that you can be ready later."

"Couple things," Clint said. "One: not a great plan if it gets you killed the first day. Two: us regular humans are a lot more capable than you seem to think. And three: remember Steve? The guy we're rescuing? He can do things we can't. Got you outmatched on a couple fronts, for that matter. But him existing doesn't put us out of a job, and neither do you."

Kel looked away quickly at the mention of Steve's name.

Sam knew that her 'some of you' had been mostly aimed at him. He had to admit, the night before, he'd been more than a little pissed off at how dismissive she'd been. It had read like arrogance — still did, really — but now that he was seeing it in context, he was starting to think that he'd overlooked some nuances.

"No one blames you for what happened to Steve," he said. "You know that, right?"

Her mouth twisted into a bitter smile. "I do," she said. "I helped. There are many things I helped them do that should not have been done. If I allow more to be lost, I add to the debt."

"Yeah, well, you don't pay penance by throwing yourself into the teeth of every giant lizard that comes along," Clint told her. "If you're serious about making things right, you need to start letting us back you up."

Kel chewed on that for a time. "This will get harder as we go further. Worse, also, at night."

"We'll deal with it," Natasha said. " _All_ of us."

She nodded slowly. "All right. I'll tell you when there's a problem. We can take turns on defense." She glanced back up the hill, and pulled a face. "A group of scavengers just caught the scent of the dead meat. They'll start with the two up there, but—"

"Hang on," Sam said. "What two?"

Kel blinked at him. "The other two. Of the—" she pointed at the dead dragon "—whatever you want to call this. It's the… I can't say male or female, because they have three types. But it's one of the other two that sprays the poison. This is why that one attacked me more than you: I killed its mates."

Oh — there'd been _three_ oversized komodo dragons. Sam rubbed his forehead. "Okay, but we're very clear that from now on, you don't do things like that on your own, right?"

"It wasn't so dangerous."

"We're _very clear_ that—"

" _Yes_ ," she said, and added something in her language that sounded exasperated. "I accept the order. Can we move away now?"

They struck camp, such as it was, and set off down the road again. Kel agreed to lead them safely out of range of the scavengers she was sensing, then to stop for the rest break that none of them had gotten yet.

Obviously Sam wasn't happy about having been kept in the dark. At the same time, though, Kel was finally starting to make some sense to him. If he had the timeline right, she'd been working undercover in the labor camp for almost twenty months. No doubt she'd been complicit in many acts of brutality. Guilt was… a very human response. Guilt, overprotectiveness, and the impulse to trust no one but herself.

Empathic aliens with weird skin powers were a bit outside his range. Past traumas and poor coping mechanisms? Sam was right back on home turf.

Like Nat had said, they had two days to learn how to work together. Among other things, that meant the humans in the party had to demonstrate that they were up to the challenge of this planet's wildlife — the _real_ version, not the censored one. If the dangerous creatures kept up their appearances at the current rate, Sam guessed that the next team-building opportunity would be right around the corner.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sam is, of course, quoting _Predator_.
> 
> Identification of Sam's guns taken from the Internet Movie Firearms Database.


	18. Chapter 18

Branches whipped at his face and Sam brought his hands up to block as he ran. He had no clue where he was going. But it had to be better than what was behind him.

The ground abruptly vanished from beneath his feet and his heart leapt into his mouth. A split second later he landed and lurched forward, and stones bit into his palms. He seized his balance back by brute force and redoubled his pace.

Kel was hard on his heels. She hit the ground a second after he did, recovered, and kept running, every footfall an echo of his own. And crashing through the underbrush just a few yards behind her…

Sam hadn't gotten a great look at it. He'd made it as far as rangy limbs, huge claws and a maw full of teeth. Then the running started.

Each breath burned in his lungs. Sam was sprinting flat out and it wasn't nearly enough. The monster gained on them every second. Any moment now, those vicious claws would be carving through his hamstrings—

" _Now_!" Kel shouted.

With a wrench that nearly popped his kneecaps off, Sam cut his forward momentum and threw himself into a right turn. He hit the ground and plowed face-first through a clump of shrubbery before skidding to a halt. Kel tumbled to rest just as gracelessly beside him.

The monster, not in on the cue, overran them. Its limbs all seemed to tangle as it tried to stop itself—

But before it could do so, there was a sound like a guitar string snapping.

An invisible force swept the creature bodily into the air. Sam looked up just in time to see it vanish into what, if he hadn't known better, he would have thought was a large, tightly packed bundle of clinging ivy.

More twangs. Some crunches. A pattering, almost gentle, as a few stray scraps of meat fell to the ground.

The jellyfish — Sam had named this one before Natasha'd been able to come up with something ridiculous — shuffled along the branch it had been hanging from until it reached the trunk of the tree. It slowly coiled its way around the trunk and began to climb up into the canopy.

Sam had been wrong. This place _was_ an unrelenting deathtrap.

Kel, indefatigable, hopped to her feet and offered Sam her hand. "You lost your spear," she said.

"I didn't lose it, I made the tactical decision to drop it." Sam grabbed ahold and let her haul him upright. "How are the others doing?"

"Safe. On their way."

The four of them had been in the midst of dealing with another trio of the komodo dragons. They'd taken out the venom sprayer and the one built like a tank, leaving only the slippery one that was half the size of the other two and twice as fast. Clint and Nat had almost gotten it pinned down when the giant leggy claw monster had shown up. Sam and Kel had gotten the fun job of drawing it off.

Luckily, there was almost always a jellyfish within sprinting distance.

Nat and Clint came jogging into view a few minutes later, hauling everyone's gear.

"You lost this," Nat said, and held out Sam's spear.

He rolled his eyes at her, which of course she ignored, and took the weapon back. 'Spear' was maybe pushing things: it was a tree branch, reasonably straight and stripped of leaves and twigs, that Kel had hacked off of a tree for him and to which he'd affixed one of his knives.

("You need a longer weapon," Kel had said to him upon presenting him with the branch. Clint, that asshole, had had a coughing fit.)

"We must be close to the river by now," Clint said. "You can smell the water."

Kel gave an approving nod. "Very close," she said. "We'll cross before sunset."

The hike resumed. The moisture in the air increased, and was soon joined by the sound of rushing water. Then the trees abruptly gave way and the group found themselves on the bank of the river.

This was no sleepy little forest brook. Water rushed past, churning and frothing its way along the rocky banks. Sam put it at about sixty feet wide. A strong swimmer could probably get from one side to the other without getting sucked under, assuming there were no hazards below the surface, but it wouldn't have been his first choice.

"I don't suppose there's a bridge anywhere," he said.

Kel looked up and down the river. "It was a long time ago… This way, I think." She started to the right.

"Hold up," Clint said. "Is there anything in the water that's big enough to jump out and drag one of us back in? Or all of us?"

"No," Kel said. "The… fish? In-the-water things are fish, yes? Up here, the fish aren't dangerous. After the fall, they get bigger, but I don't think there are any predators that would attack something our size."

"Wow," Clint said. "I can't believe this place hasn't invented crocodiles."

"Don't give the ecosystem ideas," Natasha told him.

Kel led the way upstream, which took them in the opposite direction from the enemy outpost. "The problem is the water itself," she continued. "If you drink any, maybe it's fine, but maybe there are bacteria, or parasites. The Nyth brought many species through the portal, over a long time. The bugs here learned to like our biology."

Clint asked, "Do these bugs have cures?"

"Not pleasant ones."

The march continued in silence. The sun was going down, and after that little speech, Sam had some strong feelings about _not_ falling in the water. They stayed under the trees, a healthy distance from the bank.

Kel's sense of direction turned out to be accurate, although the bridge she'd been looking for wasn't an artificial structure but a massive fallen tree. They crossed one at a time, slowly and cautiously. The bark was slick from water spray, but the wood was still solid enough to support their weight.

Once everyone had reached the other side, Kel gestured downstream and said, "Don't worry about this."

Sam promptly began to worry. He turned and saw an animal come trundling up the river bank.

As far as Earth references went, Sam's first inclination was 'bear', but somehow it was a lot more 'teddy' than 'grizzly'. It had dark brown fur, round fuzzy ears, and a short muzzle. Its six legs were attached to a pudgy body. So help him, it was almost… cute.

The bear ignored the spectators entirely, and walked its front four paws slowly up a nearby tree. Its body elongated as it climbed, like a caterpillar. The tree was one of the fruit-bearing species that Sam had seen scattered here and there. The bear seized a branch between its teeth, nipped it off, and carried it back to the ground, where it started chomping away at the fruit.

"This one is young," Kel said. "Adults are much bigger."

"Of course they are," Sam sighed. This one, with all six legs on the ground, was already as tall as he was. _Much bigger_ was getting into elephant territory. A furry, six-legged, stretchy elephant.

"There's no danger," Kel went on blithely. "They eat plants. It's a good sign, actually. They travel in groups. Kethyshi are the only predators big enough to kill the adults. If a group is close, probably a kethysh is also."

"Good to know," Clint said. "But do we have to share a camp with it?"

The bear had eaten the half-dozen fruit that it had snagged, and was now eyeing the tree again. Kel walked over and fearlessly planted her shoulder in its flank.

"Go away," she told it, and shoved.

The bear gave a squawk, and Sam could swear that it looked offended. However, after a bit more shoving, it got the message and shuffled on its way.

The day before, after a certain amount of argument, they'd established that their overnight defensive strategy was _not_ to let the humans sleep while Kel fended off any and all nocturnal predators. Instead, they surrounded their chosen campsite with snares that had no chance of slowing down any of the bigger threats, but that would at least set off a warning racket if one came by. This, combined with a watch rota, had so far managed to keep them safe and uneaten.

Having finally reached the river, it was time to replenish their water stores. The water filter Kel had brought turned out to be a green-tinted film stretched across a thick wooden hoop. She filled a container from the river, stretched the film across the top like plastic wrap, and set it up to drain through a funnel into Nat's canteen. The hoop began regenerating the film.

Once these chores had been dealt with, the three humans broke out the rations. Kel, as was her custom, didn't.

(Her race apparently had some serious taboos surrounding food. She still refused to admit that she'd even brought any for herself, and she looked faintly scandalized every time one of them took a bite of something. At some future point, when Sam had the time and energy to spare for comparative sociology, he had some questions. For the moment, however, since it was clear that she was adequately sustaining herself in some manner, he'd agreed to leave the subject alone.)

Natasha asked Kel, "How far are we from the waterfall?"

"From here, we could reach the cliff in the usual morning walk," she said. "The outpost isn't right at the edge, but close."

Translation: two to three hours. They wanted to get there by sunrise, which meant that the next morning would be starting pretty damned early.

Over the last two days — between fighting off predators, and to within a few contingencies that couldn't be predicted in advance — they'd sketched a plan, and that plan started now. While the rest of them stretched aching muscles and massaged sore feet, Kel donned camo face paint and covered her hair with a dark grey cap.

"You're leaving right away?" Sam asked her.

She nodded. "I want to circle this place a few times first. Try and make it quiet for you, at least for a little while. Get to the outpost after dark. I don't know how long I'll have to wait for the right time to get in. Maybe not back for most of the night."

"I'm still not thrilled with the idea of you going without backup."

She shrugged. "I'm 'not thrilled' to leave you unguarded for so long. But this is what has to be done."

"If you're seen—"

"Then we're dead. So I won't be seen."

It wasn't that Sam questioned her capabilities. They were long past that. He just hated the idea that her errand could make or break the entire operation and none of them could be there to help.

Kel settled her sword in its sheath and buttoned up her jacket. "I'll try to be back before you leave tomorrow," she said, "or else I'll meet you on the way."

"Understood," Natasha replied. "Good luck."

Once Kel was gone, the rest of them settled in for the night. Natasha had the first watch; Sam, the second.

"Big day tomorrow," said Natasha.

"Big cat tomorrow," said Clint.

"Could be a big cat tomorrow. No guarantees."

"Fair enough," Clint admitted. "Big cliff tomorrow."

Sam ground his teeth together and said nothing. It was just their way of dealing. Not like he wasn't familiar with the concept. But he couldn't even pretend to take this one lightly.

Steve had been at the outpost for a full day now, and it would be another full day at the earliest before they could hope to get him out. Sam had seen too many battlefields. He knew all too well the extent of horrific injury that even an unenhanced human could endure and still, technically, survive. What these monsters could do to Steve in two days…

None of them had said it aloud, but they all knew that part of the reason for Kel's raid on the outpost that night was to find out if there was anything left to be rescued.

And that didn't even touch on the perilous nature of their plan, which hinged on Clint and Natasha finding — and, more critically, _controlling_ — a fantastically dangerous wild animal. The night before they'd overthrown the camp (which already felt like forever ago), they'd agreed to leave Vision behind because of how critical he was to the rest of the war. No risk to him was acceptable — not until he'd had a chance to buy precious time by wreaking havoc on the enemy warships.

Now, though, when Sam's two friends were about to face down an apex predator with nothing but primitive weapons and their squishy human bodies, he couldn't help but read that decision as egregiously overconfident.

He suddenly clued in that Nat had said his name. "Yeah?"

"If this goes right, we won't get anywhere near it."

Hell of an _if_.

"Yeah," Sam said. "I know that."

Clint snorted. "Hey, man, do you mind not planning my funeral while I'm sitting right here?"

"I'm not," Sam said quickly, and… yeah, mid-mission was a bad time to get introspective. He knew better. "I just want to get this done."

"I hear you," Clint said, more mildly. "If she can't find what she's after…"

Natasha said firmly, "Then we'll come up with something else. Let's not invite more problems than we've already got."

Maybe the topic had been weighing on him more than Sam had realized, because he found that he couldn't let it go. "We've had the exact same problem the whole time," he said. "We weren't prepared."

"For the rescue op?" Clint asked.

"For the entire planet," Sam said. "We barged in with almost no information, we've been caught off-guard by pretty much _everything_ , and so far we haven't done a damned thing except make the situation worse."

Natasha eyed him shrewdly. "You mean _Steve_ barged in."

"Hey, I was two steps behind him," Sam said. "No one twisted my arm to get me here. We all made our choices. But this war we're about to start puts the entire camp at risk, and if we lose people, that's on us."

"That only works in hindsight," Clint said. "Yeah, it turns out that some tall woman that none of us has ever heard of before scooped us by three years, assembled her own crack team of enhanced personnel, and pretty much had the situation under control. But I don't see how we were supposed to know that ahead of time!"

"Besides the part where two members of her crack team told us?"

"Yeah, besides that." Clint shifted in place. "All right. We butted in and blew Boss-Lady's plan to hell. Can't argue. So what could those two kids back on Earth have said to get you to make a different call?"

Sam looked away. It was true that the Jean-Kel combo had to be seen to be believed. Realistically, no amount of explanation from Peter or Kiran could have convinced him to just walk away and leave this crisis in the hands of a stranger. In that sense, Clint had a point: at the time, they'd made the only move they could.

Which meant that the problem had started earlier than that. If he'd been feeling petty, he could have pinned it on Jean, who had kept her intel, her plans and her alien buddy a secret from everyone. But that decision hadn't exactly occurred in a vacuum. She'd been swayed by the Hydra revelation, followed by Sokovia, Lagos, Leipzig… names now synonymous with the incidents that had occurred there, all contributing to the atmosphere of distrust.

(Not unlike how Sam's knee-jerk resistance to the idea of the Accords had been based on the sort of distrust of government oversight that a person could pick up after watching three SHIELD-operated Helicarriers come within half a second of wiping out millions. Jean's actions had contributed to the mess they were in, but there was a decent chance that Sam would have done the exact same thing in her shoes. He wasn't sure how he felt about that.)

"Probably nothing," he admitted. "To fix this, a lot of things would have had to change. But that doesn't get me off the hook for my part."

"You all talk a lot."

Sam snatched his spear and rolled up to his knees on pure reflex.

The voice had come from between Clint and Natasha. Kel detached herself from the shadows a moment later. Sam sighed and set his weapon down again.

Clint, likewise, slowly lowered his bow. "How did you do that?"

"Easily. I move when you listen to each other."

He shot Natasha a pointed look. "We were supposed to have someone on watch."

Natasha shrugged faintly. "I knew she was there."

"And you didn't feel like saying anything?"

"You were having such a good time bickering, I hated to interrupt."

Sam asked Kel, "What are you doing here, besides giving two of us heart attacks?"

"I thought of something else that I can do at the outpost," Kel said. "I came back for rope." She paused. "Jean is also angry at you. And herself. And me, although she tries not to think about this as much. And I regret things I did and said when I first came to Earth, that made it harder for her to share my information. Many choices led here. We share the debt."

Clint asked, "What did you do?"

"Things I regret," Kel repeated firmly. She knelt down and extracted a thick coil of rope from the depths of her pack, and slung it across her shoulder like a bandolier. "You were all so… _alien_. I was afraid to show weakness. I let this become more important than the reason I came." She straightened up again. "For me, the debt is simple, because I know how to pay it: protect the people who were stolen, who did nothing to deserve the risk. Is it different for you?"

"It's one thing to repair the damage," Sam said. "It's a lot harder to make sure that something like this doesn't happen again. There are problems back on Earth that won't be fixed just by bringing everyone home."

"Yes, I think Jean talked about this also," Kel said. "You fight each other, and you don't trust your leaders." Her frown was pensive. "If j'Brenithi wanted your world, this would be a good time to take it. Yes — a bigger problem. I agree."

Sam blinked. _Did she really just…_

"For future reference," Natasha said, very calmly, "invasion threats are considered poor form during friendly conversations."

Kel flicked her fingers dismissively. " _I_ don't want your territory. And you already know that it's vulnerable. Anyway, the problem is there, and you can't fix it here. You all lost blood. You should rest." She quirked a little smile. "Big cat tomorrow."

 

* * *

 

The jaguar crept out across the boulder, crouched low, a flick of its tail conveying excitement at the hunt. It reached the highest point and froze, staring intently into the water.

With a graceful flow of motion, it dived. The water parted around it, and it vanished from view for ten seconds… twenty… thirty… and emerged again on the opposite bank with a fish in its mouth. A crunch of its jaws, a single gulp, and the fish was gone. The jaguar shook itself off, and padded off into the forest.

Then the eye shifted focus. Scale reasserted itself. The river was a good three hundred feet below them; the jaguar had been almost a mile away. The rock it had leapt from would have given the most brazen of cliff divers pause. The fish it had swallowed had been itself large enough to eat a human being.

"We're lucky," Kel said. "It's close."

"Yeah," said Clint. "Lucky. I'm sure that's the word for it."

"You wanted a diversion."

"I wanted a cover story. Nat's the one who wanted a giant jaguar."

"You have to admit, it's going to be diverting," Natasha said absently, still studying the terrain.

They were looking east, into the rising sun. The waterfall, a short distance to the left, tumbled down to the base of the cliff over a series of rocky steps. In their immediate vicinity, the side of the cliff was sufficiently sheer that Natasha would have strongly preferred not to have to free-climb it. However, in the distance to the south, the dropoff became less severe, approaching something that two humans could cautiously climb down.

Or that one giant jaguar could angrily climb up.

They backed away from the edge of the cliff and regrouped beneath the trees.

If the jaguar had simply been a wild animal, Natasha would have been the first to admit that her plan was all but impossible. For one thing, its territory had to be proportionately huge. Two humans on foot might have needed months to track it down.

But it was also a weapon, and there were certain features that weapons generally shared, like a targeting system, and an off switch. And, for weapons like Cap's shield, or Mjolnir, or a fifty-ton jaguar, which had a tendency to go wandering off on their own: a recall mechanism.

Natasha'd had a hunch from that first strategy meeting, and Kel had later confirmed it: the jaguars came with operating instructions. It was all done with scents and chemical triggers carried by certain plants — not nearly as convenient as a radio signal that could be hacked, but they would have to make do.

There was a fist-sized pod filled with spores that would spread through the air and compel the jaguar to track down the source. (That part could have still taken several days; they'd gotten lucky that one was already in the area.) There were thistle-like bulbs that were strung up in the trees surrounding the enemy outpost, which served as a repellant. Most critically, there was a plant with reddish leaves that, when crushed, mixed with the blood of the desired target, and splashed across the jaguar's nose, would cause it to hunt down any creature sharing that scent with single-minded intensity.

This planet had plants for all occasions, in fact, including pods with curly tendrils that would suck up blood from a vein, and let it drip slowly back out again. All three humans had donated, and now they had enough to leave a scent trail. Natasha and Clint would hang the pods every half-mile or so, and once their weapon was primed, it would follow the scent all the way back up the cliff to the outpost, where it would finally zero in on Steve.

And again, they'd gotten lucky: Kel could recognize each of the jaguar's botanical triggers by sight and scent, and the outpost had samples of them available to be stolen. She'd returned just as the rest of the team had been striking camp that morning, her pockets laden with samples.

While en route to the cliff, the team had punched a hole in the Nyth's repellant perimeter, and kept the thistles for themselves. All they had to do now was lure the jaguar into Clint's sights so that he could tag it with the primer potion from a safe distance. A straightforward plan.

Of course, there were still a few practical difficulties, like the fact that Natasha and Clint also smelled human. Happily, there was a plant for that, too: on the first day of the trip, Kel had pointed out a bluish-green ivy that was supposed to take the edge off the humans' tasty warm-blooded scent, and they'd all collected as much of it as they could spot. It was a shy little plant, unfortunately, which was why they'd saved it up for the hunt and the return trip.

The one problem that exobotany couldn't solve was that of timing. Sam and Kel were going to be in hiding close to the outpost, waiting for Kel to sense the jaguar coming. In order for the two of them to be able to sneak in unobserved, the attack had to come at night. The jaguar, like its terrestrial counterpart, was crepuscular, but that wasn't to say that it would ignore Clint and Natasha if they accidentally disturbed its midday nap. They had to stay well clear of it until nightfall, then set off the spores at dusk and hope that it didn't take all night to get interested.

There was very little more to be said. They all knew their jobs. Natasha had some apprehensions about her role — only a fool wouldn't have — but she also didn't envy Sam the waiting.

She and Clint double-checked that they had packed all of the relevant plants. Then Kel unhooked one of her sheaths from her belt — the one containing the dagger that she had diligently coated with every form of venom that they'd come across over the last two days. The metal had taken on a greasy tinge.

She handed it to Natasha. "A small distraction only. Not fatal. But if you need it…"

Natasha nodded her thanks.

"Odds are we'll meet you later tonight," Clint said.

"Here's hoping," Sam replied. "Good luck."

"And you," said Natasha.

Clint fell in beside her, and the two of them started south.

 

* * *

 

Descending the cliff took the entirety of the morning, after which Clint and Natasha took a long rest break. The jaguar, in all probability, was still on the other side of the river, but Natasha didn't want to take any chances that it would catch their scent.

It wasn't just the jaguar that was oversized: at the bottom of the cliff, _everything_ was scaled up. The forest they'd left had been comparable to old growth that could be found in any number of places on Earth. Down here, though, the trees maintained their diversity of species, but there were specimens of every kind that would have put all but the tallest of redwoods to shame.

The oddly extensible bear from the night before had quite a few friends and family members in this part of the woods. Kel had been right: the first one had been a baby. The adults were much, much bigger. Luckily, they were all equally placid of temperament, so long as the two humans didn't get between them and the fruit.

As the sun sank lower in the sky, the two of them made their way back to the waterfall, still leaving behind their blood trail. In a startling contrast to the previous two days, no predators bothered them. The paste they'd made from the blue ivy seemed to be working.

A niche in the rock next to the waterfall proved to be uninhabited. They turned it into a blind, disguised by uprooted bushes and liberally decked with repellant thistles. Once that was done, they reapplied their camoflage paste and set out single-file, following the river downstream. They had to set off the spores somewhere that would bring the jaguar close enough for Clint to make his shot, but not so close that the two of them would be the first victims of the ensuing chemically induced bloodlust.

It was slow going. Both banks were littered with rocks and boulders, giving the impression that the river channel had been violently carved out of the terrain. The huge chunk of rock that the jaguar had dived from was visible in the distance; its size was an aberration, but boulders fifteen or twenty feet tall were common. If Natasha had been a giant jaguar, she would have viewed this area as prime ambush territory.

The setting sun caused the cliff to cast a long shadow. It would be fully dark soon. Clint had an arrow — an ordinary one — nocked and ready. The one fitted with the little pouch of primer hung at his belt. Natasha walked about ten yards in front of him, machete in hand.

The bears had disappeared.

They'd been thick on the ground not an hour ago, but now there were none to be seen. The forest was unnaturally silent. Something dangerous was nearby.

As the light dimmed, Natasha's sense of danger grew, until she signaled a halt. She would have seen even a hint of motion from across the river. It had to be something else… something closer.

Clint's instincts were as good as hers. She turned to him, and he gave a quick shake of his head: he hadn't seen the jaguar either. Together, they held position, every sense alert, and scanned for the threat.

There — in the trees behind Clint. A shadow shifted, too slow and deliberate to have been caused by the wind. In the last of the fading sunlight, Natasha caught the faint glitter of compound eyes.

She said quietly, "Clint?"

But he didn't turn to look. He was staring past her. "Nat?"

Claws scraped on rock behind her, and she threw herself into a roll. The jaguar crashed down not a meter away, and the ground shook.

It was _huge_. Its size defied reason. It snorted, and Natasha almost gagged at the smell of rotten meat. In a back corner of her mind, some piece of genetic memory from life at the bottom of the food chain started to scream and couldn't stop.

In the background, the bowstring sounded. A curse. The low rattle of the chimpanzee. She couldn't help.

The machete was as useless as a toothpick, and Natasha dropped it. Maneuverability was her only weapon. She ducked around the boulder that the jaguar had been using as cover. She just had to buy a few seconds for Clint to deal with the other problem, just a few—

Claws the length of her torso swept in and Natasha flung herself flat. The paw missed her by inches, and there was an awful screech as the claws gouged lines in the stone. She scrambled back and around, trying to keep the bulk of the rock between her and the beast.

Mice probably tried that trick against housecats. Most of them probably didn't try it twice.

The bow fell silent. Clint had to be clear. He had to be. He was waiting for her to draw out the target. Like they'd done a thousand times.

She'd circled the rock. The river was in sight again. But so was the jaguar. It pivoted to follow her, impossibly agile for its size. Its back claws threw up clods of gravel and dirt the size of her head. Too close. If it crushed her against the rock, she was dead. Natasha make a break for open ground.

The jaguar closed the distance in an easy stride. That massive paw was inbound again — too fast, she'd never get clear of the claws. She pulled Kel's dagger and turned, and stepped in.

The blow struck with the force of a thousand hammers. Natasha flew back and landed hard. A shock of pain bit into her side, and she knew that she'd cracked ribs. But the impact also drove the poisoned blade deep into the pad of the jaguar's paw.

The creature jerked back sharply. Its yelp of surprise turned into a protracted yowl of pain when the toxins hit, and it shook its paw in the air like it could dislodge the sting.

Natasha scrambled to her feet, locking down the fresh stab of pain, and ran. Clint was on the ground, but he had his bow with the primer arrow at the ready, and the moment Natasha passed him, he took the shot.

Braking from a sprint to a standstill cost her dearly, but Natasha didn't dare give the jaguar a moving target and she sure as hell wasn't leaving Clint behind. They weren't supposed to have been this close when they tagged it. If it could smell their human blood, they were both dead. She dropped to the ground behind him, and froze.

There was a splash of dark red across the jaguar's nose. It pawed at its face, and sneezed.

Its nostrils flexed as it sniffed the air. Its head turned. Natasha could sense a moment of indecision. She tried to will herself, still and silent, to blend into the landscape.

The jaguar gave one last sniff, then turned and took off into the forest, heading south.

Natasha permitted herself one moment of sheer, boneless relief. Then she sat up and turned to check on Clint.

He was lying on his side, propped up on one elbow, the bow still in his other hand. One dead chimpanzee lay at the base of the tree where Natasha had seen it. There was a second one curled up nearby, also dead. Both bodies sported multiple arrows.

"You all right?" Clint asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she said, because cracked ribs were a problem for another day. "You?"

"Well… she was right."

"Yeah," Natasha said cautiously. His voice was way too tense, and he still hadn't sat up. "The targeting system worked."

"That too. But what I meant was, this _really_ fuckin' hurts."

The closest chimpanzee's fangs were bloody. Clint turned his leg over, and there was a tear in the calf of his trousers.

 

* * *

 

Kel had suggested that he sleep, but Sam knew _that_ wasn't happening. He shifted his back into a slightly less uncomfortable position up against the tree trunk and tried to quiet his thoughts.

Steve was alive. Badly injured — Kel had been short on details, which worried him — but alive. As soon as the other team sent them their diversion, they were going to get him out.

After Clint and Nat had left, Sam and Kel had hiked all the way back upstream to the fallen log and crossed the river, then reversed course and approached the outpost. On the way, Sam had spotted the garlands of prickly olive green bulbs that served as jaguar repellant. The outpost was surrounded by them, at a healthy margin… although, having seen one of the beasts in the flesh, Sam's idea of a healthy margin was more on the scale of a continent.

He and Kel were inside that perimeter now, close to the river. There was nothing left to do but wait. The jaguar could arrive at any moment, or it could take all night. Or maybe it wouldn't show at all, and they would have to spend another day in hiding. There was no way to know.

The sun had set not long ago, and the last streaks of purple were fading from the sky. Next to him, Kel was slumped against the same tree, looking far more relaxed than Sam was. Her eyes were closed, her breathing was deep and even, and she hadn't moved a muscle in hours. She was… patrolling her mental boundaries, or something like that. Stretching her perception to its limits so that she would sense the inbound jaguar with as much lead time as possible.

Sam hated waiting. Always had. He hated having no control over when their mission would start, and he hated not knowing if the other team was all right. He desperately hated not knowing what shape they were going to find Steve in when they got there.

There were other things he hated, too, but as it happened, he didn't get time to run the full list. One moment, Kel might as well have been sleeping; the next, she was upright and fully alert. She touched him on the shoulder, not that the signal was needed. It was go time.

They'd long since hidden their packs away, carrying only what they needed. Sam let a couple drops of water fall onto the hand-sized rectangle of what looked like green cardboard, and within seconds it had rehydrated itself to form a flexible face mask. A thick hollow reed, carefully punched through the material, turned it into a simple but adequate snorkel mask. Once they'd both been outfitted, first Kel and then Sam slipped into the water.

Sam braced for the shock of cold, but the water still stole his breath away. The current buffeted him from all sides and he dug his fingers into the rocks that lined the bank. The river was deep here, and the waterfall was close. If he lost his grip, he wasn't sure he'd even get his head above water in time, let alone make it back to shore.

Kel's hand closed around his ankle and pulled it further beneath the water. Guiding it. His foot caught on something long and flexible.

Sam reached down with fingers already going numb, and got a hand around it as well. Then two hands. It was a length of rope: a guiding line that Kel had laid down the night before, anchored to the side of the river channel at regular intervals. By sliding down the line, like gym class, only sideways, they would stay below the surface of the water, but not so deep that their snorkel gear would be useless. And, of course, they wouldn't get swept over the waterfall.

He had no clue how she'd managed it.

Blind and freezing, Sam inched his way down the rope, waiting for the next signal. It bucked in his hands, not only from the current but from the added motion of Kel crawling down ahead of him. The current also lashed at the reed that was his only air supply, threatening to drag it under. Sam had already swallowed some water. He really hoped the parasites had stayed home that night.

The problem was the near-invisible guitar string barrier. It wasn't discreetly hidden in the trees like the one that surrounded the prison camp. The outpost sat within a region that had been cleared of all trees and other possible cover, and the barrier hung from wooden poles, all placed out in the open. Even under the cover of darkness, it was highly unlikely that they could have gotten across it without being seen. But the Nyth only used it to guard themselves from the wildlife on their nightmare planet. They weren't expecting an enemy attack. That was why the river, which they used for irrigation, ran right under the barrier and through the center of the outpost. That was their way in, and Steve's way out. Assuming they could get to Steve before the enormous, chemically enraged predator showed up and tore them all to shreds.

A tap on his foot told Sam to stop. They'd crossed the barrier and were in position. Now Kel was perceiving exactly where every hostile was, waiting for the coast to be clear.

He clung to the rope. His fingers ached with that unique combination of exertion and cold. The water wasn't freezing, not literally, but… fifty degrees or less, he was pretty sure. Hypothermia was on the table if they got trapped for too long.

At last, amidst the pounding of the water, another tap.

Sam slowly, very slowly worked his way back up to the surface, and blinked water out of his eyes. The river bank beside him had the straight lines of something that had been artificially shaped. He reached up, and his hand met grass. As quietly as he could, he pulled himself out of the water and rolled up onto the shore.

He was behind a wide wooden structure. Kel was beside him, waterlogged like he was but apparently fine. Her snorkel mask was on the ground next to her. She crawled up beside him and swiped at the edge of his with some kind of cloth, and he felt it detach from his skin. She pocketed the green parts, and stuck the reeds inside her jacket.

Hand signals: follow, stay low.

The structure turned out to be a greenhouse. The wooden base was about knee-high. Wood posts at the four corners supported a translucent film that surrounded the plants inside. More greenhouses of the same basic design stood in multiple rows that ran the length of the river on both sides. Some of the bases were higher or wider, and some of the films were different shades. Some of the plants were moving.

No sign of any hostiles. The Nyth could see into the infrared (heat not exactly an issue right now), but they wouldn't be expecting anyone inside the perimeter. There were relatively few defenses in here. Sam and Kel just had to stay hidden. The two of them crawled on their stomachs, around the bases of the greenhouses, away from the river.

A quick sign from Kel, and Sam stopped. He waited on her signal, heart pounding, trying not to shiver too loudly. A second later, he heard it: the patter of many legs. Close and getting closer.

Not moving directly toward them, though. Kel inched them forward, achingly slowly, around the corner. Sam drew up beside her, and there they both froze.

The footsteps passed them by, just on the other side of the structure, without slowing. The sound changed — now the legs were falling on wood — and continued to recede, across the river.

Kel gave a quick nod — _all clear_ — and pointed across the grass to one particular building. It was maybe half the size of the camp infirmary. Cubical in shape, wooden walls and roof, and a square doorway with no door.

Sam nodded back. He was ready.

Together, they surged to their feet and ran.

Once through the door, Kel dodged left and Sam dodged right, and they both pressed themselves against the wall for what minimal cover it could provide.

He took in the perimeter first, automatically sweeping for the enemy, other exits, lines of sight. There were no windows, two skylights, no other doors. No scorpions.

Pods of various sizes were hanging from the wall in front of him. Most of them had one or more vines trailing from the bottom edge. Sam recognized the design from the little pods Kel had used to draw and store their blood, but these ones were much larger.

The majority of the floor space was occupied by a low wooden platform in the center of the room. All of the vines led in that direction.

Lying on the platform, pale and still as death, was Steve.

Kel had been convinced from day one that Steve could never have escaped on his own. Sam finally understood why.

 


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning for the aftermath of medical experimentation.

Any half-decent natural history museum had a bug section. Insects, spiders, scorpions, whatever: a collection of specimens up on the walls, or maybe arranged in drawers, neatly labelled and pinned to white sheets.

Consider what the bugs might do to take their revenge.

Steve was pinned to the platform. The pins were the size of railroad spikes. They'd been punched through both humeri and both femurs, and into the slab of wood beneath.

That wasn't even the worst of it. A hand-sized window of tissue had been excised from Steve's side, clear down to his ribs. There were vines leading into the wound, snaking between ribs to somewhere in the abdominal cavity. More vines were attached to major arteries: carotid, brachial, femoral. More still seemed to be targeting the heads of the long bones. Extracting blood and bone marrow.

Sam had seen worse things. But not many.

His legs seemed to have gone numb, but somehow they carried him the final few steps to Steve's side. He reached out. No radial pulse. Carotid…

There. Way too faint and way too slow, but there.

There would be time for rage later. Right now he had a job to do. Kel handed him a swatch of the cloth that was used to detach the vines, and Sam got to work. Each vine retracted when its entry point had been swabbed, leaving behind a small red puncture mark.

Meanwhile, Kel circled around to Steve's other side, and set her hand down over the pin in his arm. Sam didn't see exactly what she did, but a moment later, she carefully lifted his arm up, drawing it off of the length of metal. The wound barely bled — a bad sign. Stone-faced, she moved on to the next limb.

Sam cleared all of the surface vines, then tentatively wrapped the damp cloth around one that was attached internally. After a slight pause, it began to shrivel up. He gave a cautious tug, and it came easily out of the wound. Once all the vines had been dealt with, he taped down a waterproof field dressing over Steve's side, and likewise treated the four deep punctures in his arms and legs.

Steve was naked, but they'd anticipated that. Sam pulled a change of clothes from the waterproof interior pocket of his jacket, and with Kel's help he got Steve dressed. What the patient did _not_ need next was a lengthy dip in frigid dirty water, but there was no getting around that. The river was still their only way out.

Lastly, Kel plunged a knife into one of the pods hanging from the wall. A dark sludge began to pour out of it, and the unmistakeable metallic tang of blood filled the air.

Her head turned sharply. Quick as a flash, she was pressed against the wall next to the door. A sharp gesture brought Sam alongside her.

Her hand said: _quiet, still_. Then she drew her sword.

Sam pulled a knife, and wished for even the marginally greater offensive capacity of his makeshift spear, which was currently stashed at their rendezvous point. The pulse of imminent danger blocked out the cold.

They waited, for Sam didn't know what, for a long time.

Then he heard the quick patter of footsteps approaching — maybe the same scorpion that had been on patrol by the river. Kel raised her sword arm, shifting her grip so the blade pointed downward.

A shadow crossed the threshold. Then those massive foreclaws. The segmented body with its smaller grasping arms—

Kel drove the sword down. It crunched through carapace and plunged all the way to the wooden floor. In a single smooth motion, she drew the blade back and severed the overhanging tail. The creature collapsed in place.

That hadn't been in the plan.

Kel pointed to Steve, and Sam got the message. Time to go. He hefted Steve onto his shoulders and prayed that whatever internal injuries the man had suffered wouldn't turn life-threatening under the rough treatment. Steve wasn't exactly a small guy, but somehow he felt frailer than he should have.

Kel slashed deep gouges into the alien corpse, creating pseudo-claw marks (Sam _really_ wanted to take a turn at it). Then she sheathed her sword and gave him a nod, and they both ran for the river.

At the river bank, he dropped to a crouch and set Steve down beside him, propping him up against his shoulder. Kel slapped together a mask and breathing tube and attached it to Sam's face, then repeated the procedure for Steve.

If he looked past the greenhouses on the other side of the river, Sam could see a couple of the wooden posts that supported the barrier. He could see the forest beyond them. And he could see the massive jaguar that had just stepped out from between the trees.

It was immense. It was _impossible_. Biological organisms — structures of any kind, really — couldn't just be scaled up like a photo enlargement. Everyone knew that. The creature should have been suffocating under its own weight.

It absolutely should _not_ have been able to clear a thirty-foot barrier in a single, easy bound.

It landed with a crash — enough to wake every scorpion on the premises — and then there was no more time to think because Kel shoved them all into the river.

The blast of cold struck him all over again. Sam managed to keep one arm around Steve while he found the rope with the other. The current sucked him under, tried to tear him off the guiding line, tried to tear Steve out of his grip. His breathing tube got submerged and he spat out a mouthful of water. No time to check on Steve. Sam clung to him with all his strength and let the water carry them downstream as fast as he dared, ignoring the fierce sting as the rope tore skin from his palm, trying not to imagine the jaguar dipping one of those man-sized paws into the river and scooping them up like a cat after a goldfish.

A cold and dark eternity later, Sam's feet rammed into Kel's shoulders, and she belatedly tapped him on the ankle. He tightened his grip on the rope (his hand _really_ hated that) and tried to find some purchase with his feet on the side of the channel, and finally generated enough drag to halt his progression. He lifted his and Steve's heads out of the water. Splashing near him suggested that Kel was pulling herself up out of the river. Moments later, her hand found his where he still had a grip on Steve. He pushed and she pulled, and together they lifted Steve up onto the bank.

Once Steve was clear, Sam followed him up on shore and wiped the water out of his eyes. They were back underneath tree cover, out of sight of the outpost. The waterfall was barely fifty feet away, a constant roar in his ears. He scraped the mask off his face and spat out more river water, then knelt down to check on Steve. Vitals were no worse than they'd been before. Not that that was saying much.

He lifted Steve again and followed Kel deeper into the woods, to the natural alcove in the hollow of a tree where they'd stashed the majority of their gear earlier that day. Everything looked undisturbed.

"Safe for now," Kel said.

Sam set Steve down as gently as he could. "Are we gonna have jaguar problems?" he asked.

"No," Kel said. "They're about to kill it. Dry clothes."

"Steve first."

Sam unpacked a fresh set of fatigues, and they got Steve towelled off and redressed. Then he pulled a second set for himself, while Kel crouched by Steve and went through her own checks.

"His body keeps him alive," she said when Sam rejoined her. "It's more than I could do. He lost blood, marrow, spinal fluid. Samples from most organs. There are… small pieces still inside him. I don't know what they do. Some of the wounds are already infected." She looked up at him. "If we get him to Aaron quickly, he has a chance. But it must be _quickly_."

Sam gave a curt nod. His field medical kit had antibiotics, but who the hell knew what they could do against alien bacteria — not to mention the risk of adverse interactions if Steve had alien drugs in his system. Sam wasn't sure if Aaron's particular enhancement could make all these problems go away with a wave of his hands — somehow he guessed that it wouldn't be as simple as that — but it was a hell of a lot more than Sam could do in the middle of a forest.

"How about the other team?" he asked. "You got a read on them?"

Kel turned her head in the direction of the cliff. Sam watched her expression progress from distant to concerned to stricken.

"Kel?" he prompted.

"They're both damaged," she said.

The words seemed to… bounce off, at first. "What do you mean, _damaged_?" Sam snapped. "How bad?"

"Bad," she said. "One too much to climb back up the cliff. They're together. Under cover, I think. They won't try to come here."

He ground his teeth together. They'd discussed this possibility, of course, all bloodless and hypothetical: if Steve was critical, and someone couldn't make the rendezvous, they got left behind. Whoever was left would get Steve back to camp as quickly as possible, and return with a rescue party. That was the understanding.

Making it happen was a whole other thing.

"You have… powers, right?" he said. "Healing powers? If you got down there, could you patch them up?"

Kel's eyes closed, and her forehead creased with concentration. "I don't know for sure," she said, "but I don't think so. Enough to get them up the hill, probably, but it would be slow." She took a breath, and faced him again. "Sam," she said gently, "this one is alive, but I don't know for how long. We have to get him back to the camp _now_."

He knew that. He _knew_ that. If Steve was as badly off as he feared, mere hours could mean the difference between a treatable infection and systemic organ failure.

But there was something else he needed to know, too. "If we leave," Sam asked, "will Clint and Nat survive the wait?"

Kel didn't answer right away… and in the silence, he heard it: the steady rustle of leaves that meant a jellyfish was closing in.

"Aw, come _on_ ," Sam muttered, and climbed back to his feet again.

Kel gestured to Steve. "Can you—"

"Yeah, I got him." He went through the familiar steps of the fireman's carry yet again, ignoring the whining from traps and lats and quads that were just going to have to deal with it. He secured Steve's arm and leg with one hand (his _broken_ arm and leg — as far as patient stabilization went, this was the exact opposite thing) and carried his spear in the other, for what little good it could do.

Kel loaded up with the rest of their gear, and led the way. The jellyfish were slow, but tenacious: once one of them caught their scent, it could shadow them for hours. The only way to get rid of it was to feed it something, which meant they had to hope that something _else_ got interested in them sooner rather than later.

The only direction open to them was north, away from the waterfall and the team trapped below. Sam focused all his attention on keeping his footing and not letting Steve's head bash into a tree, trusting to Kel to be aware of incoming attacks. He lost track of time as they walked. There was only the next step, and the one after that.

Kel mercifully came to a halt. Then she turned and asked him, "Can you go faster?"

_Not_ what he'd wanted to hear. "If I have to," Sam said.

"You have to." She drew her sword, and pointed. "That way. Go straight, as fast as you can. Don't stop. I'll catch up."

This was looking a lot like the sort of unilateral risk-taking that they'd tried to talk her out of on that first day, but the situation didn't leave them much choice. Sam buckled down and double-timed it until his legs were on fire. He wasn't sure how long he could keep this up, except that he would keep it up for however long it goddamned took.

From behind him, there soon came the sounds of a struggle. Whatever Kel was tangling with, it was big. Not that that narrowed it down. He thought he heard a cry — pain or anger, he couldn't tell.

Sam kept moving. He pushed to the limits of endurance, and then he pushed further. He kept going until the sounds of combat had long since faded into the distance behind him.

A chunk of darkness abruptly transformed into a large, furry mass dead ahead of him. Sam's only hope was a preemptive strike — he raised his spear and prepared to drive in hard…

The mass was snoring. More details sank in — the legs, the head, the general body shape — and Sam realized that it was one of the stretchy six-legged bears. A second one was sleeping not far away. They were both bigger than the first one he'd seen, but not by much. Sam guessed that that was a good sign, safety-wise: they were small enough to be prey to some of the nastier things around, so if they felt safe enough to nap here unsupervised, the immediate vicinity was probably clear.

"I said don't stop."

Sam's heart leapt straight out of his chest. He spun around and there was Kel, pitched up against a tree, sword still in hand. The sword was bloody, and there were deep claw marks across her face and chest. She still had both their packs, which she let slide off her shoulders.

He almost set Steve down right there, but caution prevailed. "Are we clear?"

She nodded. "The jelly-thing has something else to eat."

Right. He laid Steve down and headed for the first aid kit.

Kel had just begun to slide down the tree, but when Sam approached, she quickly darted aside, keeping her distance.

"You're running out of steam, aren't you," Sam said, and the answer was obvious. Aside from the fact that she was visibly winded, she hadn't healed herself yet. "If you can't make those gashes vanish, we've gotta do this the old-fashioned way."

"No. Not safe."

"Safe for who?"

She sighed. "You were supposed to go further."

Her English could get a little idiosyncratic, but she usually made more sense than this. Something was off. "What are you talking about?" Sam asked cautiously.

She looked away. "You weren't supposed to see this. Jean said that it was the hardest part for her to accept."

Kel walked up to one of the sleeping bears. She wrapped her arm around its neck and closed her hand over its nose.

Sam recognized the… thing she did, skin to skin. The poor animal went rigid. It didn't cry out, but Sam could sense that it wasn't for lack of trying. It was dead less than a minute later… a very, very long minute.

When Kel looked back at him, she was breathing normally again, and her face was healed.

She took a step forward, and Sam reflexively took a step back. He regretted it instantly, because of course she winced and backed away.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I'm a Brenith. This is how we work."

_Lady, you just ate Winnie-the-Pooh. Give me a second._

Sam took a few careful breaths and waited for the attack of… of what he could only describe as paralyzing xenophobia to pass. She was the same person she'd been two minutes ago — the one who had risked her life a dozen times over for the sake of the mission, just like the rest of them. He just had a new and _deeply_ unnerving piece of information about her.

"So your touch isn't just a weapon," he said. "That's how you eat."

"I wish there was a different word for it. I… use what I take, yes."

"But it's also how your healing powers work?"

Kel looked down at her hand as she splayed her fingers. "To heal this way is something I learned recently. Very unnatural. Have to be focused. Controlled. So I can do the opposite of what my instincts say."

Sam sighed. "Well, at least this explains your thing about food."

As always, she cringed in embarrassment and averted her eyes. "I know it's different in your culture, but for us… through the mouth… _babies_ do this. Among adults, it's… not polite."

No, of course not. Sucking out a creature's life directly through its skin — that was _way_ more elegant.

"One more thing I have to know: that day when Steve and Nat first got to the camp, did you—"

"No. I took nothing. It was only sensation. I promise."

Okay. Okay. Sam took another breath and mentally boxed up the issue to be dealt with later. They had far more immediate concerns.

Kel made a small gesture in Steve's direction. "Can I?"

Sam nodded. She knelt beside Steve and delicately rested her fingertips on his forehead.

"We need to build a… I don't have the word, but so that one of us at a time can drag him, not carry."

"A litter," Sam said. "Agreed."

"The infection spreads already. His body can't fight it." She sat back on her heels, and looked up at Sam. "He has a day. No more than two, and maybe not that much. If you and I take him back to the camp now — walk through the night, don't sleep — we can get there by the afternoon."

He exhaled slowly. The two of them had to transport two hundred pounds of dead weight mostly uphill for almost forty miles, through hostile territory, and she was proposing to do it in under twenty-four hours. If he'd been fresh out of the gate, _maybe_. But it had been a long three days.

"Much as I hate to admit it, your numbers might be a little optimistic."

"There's something I can give you," she said. "There is risk, and you'll need time to recover after. But you will be able to push through the trip without rest. Then, on my own, I can come back for the other two even faster."

"No offense, but I'll bet Vision's got you beat for land speed," Sam said, skipping over the question of performance enhancers for the moment. "And that still leaves Clint and Nat on their own for a whole day, with one of them hurt and the other incapacitated. I pretty much hate that scenario."

"If we travel together, it's safer from attack, but slower." Kel was still on her knees, looking up at him, and the visual was starting to make Sam uncomfortable. "Both choices have risk. I'll do what you say."

Sam crouched down on Steve's other side, and picked up his wrist. His radial pulse was detectable now, even if it was dangerously low. Maybe the serum was finally trying to do its job.

"You know where the two of them are, right?" Sam asked. "Precisely?"

"Yes."

"Okay," he said. "Here's what we do."

 

* * *

 

The cave didn't really deserve to be called a cave: it was a narrow fissure in the rock, barely deep enough for both of them to fit, and not nearly tall enough to stand up in. But since they were going to be stuck there for a while, Natasha chose to designate it a cave.

Once it had been clear that the jaguar was committed to its mission, she'd carried Clint inside (fierce pain stabbing through her side; ignored), and slit open his trouser leg to the knee. Within minutes, his calf had ballooned up grotesquely. A pressure bandage would perhaps contain the toxins, and likely condemn the leg. She'd applied it.

The effort of holding in the pain left him in knots, and there was nothing Natasha could do to help. Morphine depressed respiration; if there were neurotoxins in his bloodstream, she didn't dare.

Envenomation had to be treated with the correct counteragent. That was the only protocol. Their medical supplies included broad-spectrum antivenom cocktails… all Earth-based, which meant that they were likely worse than useless here. Before the team had split up, Kel had shared her stash of locally grown medicines: the cream that neutralized komodo dragon acid, a powder that was supposed to remove the smell of blood from clothing (useful since she kept getting clawed by things), a local anesthetic, and a few different antibiotics. What she didn't have was antivenom.

All they could do, then, was ride out the symptoms.

(There was a part of her that wanted to weep from fear and frustration, and another that wanted to rage at the universe for daring to take one more thing away from her. Those parts were of no use now. Natasha acknowledged them, and set them aside. All that mattered were the things that needed to be done to keep them both alive.)

In the shadow of the cliff, the evening rapidly faded to night. The one thing Kel had passed on that actually did some good was a miniature pumpkin that, when its stem was broken, emitted a deep red glow — enough to see by, not enough to give away their position. Natasha set it down at the back of the cave, and settled herself next to Clint.

Conversation was unnecessary. They both understood their circumstance. Kel had made it clear that Steve would be in bad shape once they got him out, and likely in need of immediate evac. Together, the team had already discussed the possibilities, and come to the only logical conclusion: whoever was able to, completed the mission. Anyone who fell behind would have to hold out until a second rescue party arrived.

Clint had to hold out. He had to.

"Nat."

"Hey." She laid the back of her hand on his forehead. Feverish; not dangerous yet. "Thirsty?"

He nodded, and she lifted the water to his lips.

After he'd drunk a few mouthfuls, he leaned his head back again, and said, "Something's in the river."

"I know." The constant crash of the nearby waterfall made it difficult, but Natasha had caught the sounds of splashing from further downstream. Something large was crossing the river toward them.

She picked up Clint's bow and crept forward to the mouth of the cave. Drawing it was going to be sheer hell on cracked ribs, but pain was yet another thing to be set aside in favor of necessity.

The splashing stopped. Whatever it was, it had surfaced far enough away that her view was obstructed by the boulders strewn along the bank. Natasha waited, the tail of the arrow between her fingertips, for a glimpse of motion in the darkness.

She saw nothing. Instead, she heard:

"I think neither of us would enjoy it if you shot me."

Kel. Natasha gave a quiet sigh of relief, and set down the weapon. As soon as she had, a person-sized piece of shadow detached itself from the background and approached the cave. She was dripping wet from her swim, of course, although the cold didn't seem to be bothering her. A harness fastened around her upper torso and ran down her right arm, securing a prosthesis that ended in a hook, which at least began to answer the question of how she'd gotten down the cliff.

Natasha backed up as far as she could, and Kel was just barely able to duck into the cave.

Showing a set of priorities of which Natasha approved, Kel ignored her and crouched down by Clint. "I can block the pain for a while," she said. "Is it all right?"

"Like I'm gonna say no to _that_ ," he said, although he eyed her hand warily as it descended.

The effect was almost instantaneous. Her fingers touched his temple, and the tension coiling through his body seemed to evaporate.

Clint sighed deeply. "Yeah, okay," he said. "That's a pretty good trick you've got there."

Kel turned her attention to his leg next. She touched her fingers to his ankle for a long moment, then reached beneath the remnants of his trouser leg to his knee.

"It was the animal that I named a chimpanzee," Natasha said. "That's what stung him."

Kel nodded, still focused on Clint. "I saw the body." She clasped his wrist next, then touched the pulse point at his throat.

"Do you have antivenom?"

Her slight wince told Natasha the answer before she spoke. "No. In the old plan, it wasn't necessary. Aaron or I can make it once I get back to camp. Not here."

"In that case," Clint said, "not to come off as inhospitable or anything, but what the hell are you doing here?"

She sat back. "The other man — Steve — his condition is very serious. We have to get him back to the camp as soon as possible."

"Yeah. We know. We planned for this already, remember?"

"Yes," she said, "but before we left, Sam had to know if you had a safe place to stay, and if there was anything fast that I could do to help. Also, he wants you to know that a rescue will be here by this time tomorrow."

"How do you figure? It's a two-day trip."

"We're going to walk very quickly," Kel said. "Then your metal one, I'm told, moves even faster."

"We just call him Vision," Clint said. "You're weird about names, you know that?"

"No, you humans are," she countered. "You have so many of them, and some you let others choose for you, and you speak of people you don't even know. Very impolite. I try to set a better example."

Clint's chuckle came out as more of a wheeze. His head lolled to the side, and Natasha could see that his gaze was becoming unfocused. Drooping eyelids, labored breathing. That was the neurotoxin.

"So, this thing where my lips are kind of tingling," he said. "Did you do that? 'Cuz it's pretty weird."

"No," Kel said gently. "It's the poison."

"Huh." With an effort, he managed to focus on her. "Have I got a day?"

Natasha had been bracing for that question since Kel had arrived, which was why her own pain at hearing it remained somewhere deep out of sight. She didn't believe in false hopes, and neither did Clint; he had a right to know.

"It will be a very bad day," Kel said. "But I think so."

Natasha threw subtlety to the wind and scrutinized Kel's expression. She wasn't lying so much as she was… unpersuaded by her own words.

Clint caught her staring. "Do you two need to go outside and talk about the real answer behind my back?"

"No, this was the real answer," Kel said. "I just… start to think that it isn't good enough." She turned to Natasha. "I don't know how long I can keep Steve alive. This is also the real answer that isn't good enough. And it would be very difficult for three to carry two as quickly as two could carry one."

Natasha could see the plea in her eyes: _tell me that it's okay to leave. I'm not sure anymore_. And that was a _damned_ unfair burden to dump on Natasha's shoulders — asking her to choose whose life to risk. She blamed Sam more than she did Kel: he was the one who'd sent her down here rather than coming himself.

But on second thought, that analysis didn't fully ring true. Sam would have been deeply reluctant to leave people behind, but it didn't seem like him to turn that ambivalence into someone else's responsibility. If he'd sent Kel with instructions, they'd probably been along the lines of: _don't leave unless you're_ certain _they'll make it on their own_. And clearly she wasn't — not quite enough. Maybe she wasn't looking for permission to leave so much as an excuse not to.

"I think the right three could," Natasha said, "if all of them were willing to do whatever it took."

"Hold up," Clint said. "If I'm not dying and Steve is, then there's only one right move here."

"Splitting up the team tends to go badly for us," Natasha said. "We need to start learning from our mistakes." She held Kel's eyes, and felt the rightness of her decision. "I say we stay together. Are you in?"

"Yes," said Kel, and Natasha could sense her relief. "I can fix your ribs before we go. Takes a short time."

"So there _are_ ribs," Clint muttered. "When _I_ asked, there were no ribs — you remember that? I distinctly remember that."

"I miscounted," Natasha said, and leaned back. Whatever they had to do to get through the next twenty-four hours, it didn't matter: no one got left behind.

 

* * *

 

Sam waited with Steve amidst a group of sleeping bears for considerably longer than expected. Which was actually pretty much what he'd expected.

At the sound of approaching footsteps, he looked up, and smiled.

"Oh, hey. You brought company."

 

* * *

 

The Oregon Six consisted of a Matt, a Mike, a Mark, two Kerrys, and a Katie. As the original abductees, they'd been prisoners for ten months longer than anyone else, including Jean and her gang, and as such, the rest of the population accorded them a certain level of respect. When they'd arrived, or so the story went, the mine hadn't been open for business yet, and instead they'd been put to work constructing many of the camp buildings.

They had also been the first candidates for Aaron's newly opened scar removal service. He was doing four or five people per day, running in chronological abduction order. Tony was still finding it startling to see undamaged faces again.

At the moment, the six of them were clustered at one of the tables, alternately eating and explaining something. Jean was next to them, pencil and paper in hand like she always had these days, listening intently.

There was open table space next to Jean. Tony beckoned to Peter, and they sat down with their dinner plates beside her.

(Peter had lasted two whole days in the Spider-Man suit before he'd confessed to Tony that he was starting to feel silly. Since then, he'd started wearing the same uniform as the rest of them, and he'd stitched himself a new mask out of a spare shirt. This one left his mouth uncovered, so that he didn't have to roll it up over his nose in order to eat. He'd also found some charcoal and drawn a spider on his back, because the kid was committed to his aesthetic.)

Matt was saying, "…the foundations for the residences were already laid, the hospital and most of _their_ buildings were up—"

"And they already had the lumber," said First Kerry.

"Yeah, and they already had the lumber," Matt echoed. "If you're starting from literal _trees_ , then that's a completely different story. Wood is supposed to dry before you build with it, for one thing."

"I don't need something that I can pass on to my grandchildren," Jean said. "I just need it to keep the rain off our heads for a few months."

"Okay, but still, you don't even have a site cleared. That could take months all by itself."

Second Kerry said, "If we're talking smaller buildings, we could probably build around the trees. It would really depend on the site."

"Maybe," said Matt. "So then you have to find trees of the right species and the right size. You have to fell them, transport them back to your site, cut them to size — doing all of that a _lot_ of times, you understand — and _then_ you get to start construction. Which does not happen overnight. This is not going to go quickly."

Mark said, "It would be a lot simpler if you wanted new buildings added here. They were prepared for a larger population than what actually showed up. We've probably got enough lumber stockpiled to build one or two more full-sized residences."

Jean made some quick notes. "All right. Among the things I'm hearing here is a demand for pack animals. And, correspondingly, wagons of a design suitable for hauling large loads. Would that solve some of these problems?"

They looked at each other.

"Yeah," Matt said, "for sure. If we could use the supplies we've already got, that would be a hell of a lot easier."

"Very well," said Jean. "The transportation problem is among my highest priorities. In the meantime, I'd like you to step up lumber production. Starting tomorrow morning, I'll pull another section out of the mine and reassign them to you. We've got the trees and the time — let's make use of them."

"Got it."

"Also, I plan to send a preliminary expedition up into the hills within the week. If you can select a delegation from amongst yourselves, that would be helpful."

"Sure."

"Thank you." She shifted in her seat and turned her attention on Tony. "Tony. Processing?"

He'd been expecting the inquiry. "Another week," he said.

"What's causing the delay?"

"Well, if you're looking for the executive summary, I'd have to say: explosives damage."

He didn't even get the 'I'm secretly amused' eyeroll.

"We're pretty sure the building isn't going to fall down around our ears," Tony said, "and the main furnace is basically fine, but most of the other equipment is trashed. We're rebuilding — and re _growing_ , because this planet never met a problem it couldn't throw a plant at — but we can only go so fast with the tools we've got. Optimistically, I'd say it'll be at least five days before the place is in any shape to start purifying vibranium again."

She flipped pages, and made a note. "Is there anything you need? More personnel?"

Tony'd been expecting that one, too, and shook his head. "We'd lose more time teaching new people how to be blacksmiths than we'd gain on labor. The team's moving as fast as they can. We just need the time to get it done right."

Jean nodded. "All right. Please keep me posted."

She set her notes aside long enough to take a few bites of her food, but her other hand never stopped fidgeting with her pencil. On a scale calibrated to Jean, that was a shockingly overt display of anxiety.

Not that she didn't have good reason. The rescue mission was into its fourth day. Whatever operation had been planned for the research outpost was likely in progress — perhaps even over — but it could be days more before they learned the outcome.

Then again…

Peter, on the opposite side of the table, suddenly looked up in the direction of the infirmary. "Hey, you guys, I think something's happening."

Tony and Jean both turned. Aaron was standing by the infirmary's back door. He made an urgent beckoning gesture.

Jean took off at a brisk walk, and Tony and Peter were hard on her heels. En route, they met up with Wanda, who was coming in at a run from the greenhouse where she spent the majority of her time, alerted by some mechanism unknown. Together, they all followed Aaron to the other side of the building.

The rescue team emerged from the forest, precisely on the line that put the infirmary building between them and the picnic tables. Present were the four original members, plus Steve.

Tony didn't know where to look first. They were all of them muddied and bruised and bandaged, and they smelled like a four-day hard trek through the woods would reasonably smell. Kel was laden with two backpacks, and her jacket was in tatters from multiple sets of claw marks. She looked drained to a degree that Tony had never seen from her before. Sam and Natasha had the thousand-yard stares of people who were looking at their physical and mental limits in the rear-view mirror; one of Sam's hands was heavily bandaged, and Natasha was limping slightly.

They were the lucky ones. Barton was on crutches that had been crudely fashioned out of tree branches. His right leg was in a sling to keep the foot from trailing on the ground, and it was obvious even through the bandages that his entire calf was badly swollen. His eyes were mostly closed, and he was clearly crutching along on autopilot. Natasha had to touch his shoulder to get him to stop.

Sam was pulling a sled behind him, and Steve was lying on it, strapped in with a combination of bandages and what looked like someone's torn-up clothes. His face was flushed with fever and beaded with sweat, and he stirred fitfully.

Jean had put her expression on lockdown. "Let's get everyone inside," she said.

Tony froze with sudden indecision as to who in this crowd would accept his help, and by the time he snapped himself out of it, the question was moot. Jean took over dragging the sled. Wanda slipped herself beneath Barton's arm. Aaron and Peter shepherded Natasha and Sam, and Kel at least didn't appear to be on the verge of falling over. Tony wound up trailing behind as the entire convoy made its way into the waiting room.

"I need bed space," Aaron announced. "Peter, Wanda, bring three cots in here. There are some unused ones in the last residence."

Wanda set Clint down on the nearest bench, and the two of them scampered.

"The rest of you, sit down," Aaron continued. "When the beds get here, lie down. Jean, there are some water bottles in the back room. Can you—"

"On it." She disappeared as well.

Sam and Nat both sank down without so much as a word. Tony was getting desperate for one of them to say something about what the hell had happened to them all. All right, they had Steve, so apparently whatever they'd done had _worked_ , but they all looked like they'd been through a war or two already, not to mention the whole problem of whether they'd pulled off their scheme without alerting the enemy.

Kel shed one of her backpacks at the doorway. She set the other one on a bench, opened it up, and dropped a bundle of her seaweed-like paper towels beside it. "Clint's leg was stung," she said to Aaron. "This is the poison." She pushed back her right sleeve, revealing an IV pod with its vine leading into the crook of her elbow, and a nasty, red-streaked wound in her upper arm. She yanked the IV pod free and dropped it as well. "This is what my blood does to counter it. Sam and Steve were in the water. None of them slept for two days. I have to go."

That announcement shocked Tony into protesting, "Don't you think you're needed _here_?"

Kel shook her head rapidly. "I can't. Not like this, I…" She looked down at her clenched fist, which was shaking. "I have no control. I have to…" She looked up when Jean returned with the water. "Jean?"

"Go," said Jean, who apparently didn't even need the context, and Kel all but bolted.

Aaron knelt by Clint's feet, and let his hand pass slowly down the length of his injured leg.

"Jean, Tony, take Captain Rogers inside and get him on the table," he said. "Gently, if possible. His arms and legs are broken. I'll be there in a minute."

Tony's stomach turned over. Super-soldier bones could stand up to some serious punishment. What the _hell_ had Steve gone through?

He and Jean followed their orders as best they could, and got Steve settled on the operating table. Aaron joined them shortly thereafter, and rested his hand on Steve's forehead. His eyes closed.

Tony hadn't had much experience with Aaron in this capacity. He still thought of the whole empathic healer business as Kel's domain. Kel at least had the excuse of being alien. It was somehow a lot weirder to watch a human do these things.

When Aaron opened his eyes again, Jean asked, in sign, "How bad?"

(Standard protocol: those who were able to addressed Aaron in ASL. When he was around novices like Tony, he replied in English. Tony's apprehension rate was getting better, but he still got stalled on vocabulary. Aaron's casual bilingual fluency was a lovely thing.)

"Bad," Aaron answered. "I'm assuming you'd like to keep the details contained until I can give you a prognosis."

"Not if it will harm anyone," Jean said. "We have an RN and a third-year medical student — do you want them?"

"Later. Sam and Natasha are stable, and until Kel gets back, I'm the only one who has a chance of helping the other two."

Aaron sent Jean back out with instructions on how to start tending Barton's leg. Then he turned to Tony and held out a pair of shears.

"Strip his clothes."

Tony balked. "This isn't really my—"

"Help or leave."

It wasn't that he didn't _want_ to help, as such… more that he was certain that Steve wouldn't want this kind of help from him. But Kel was out of the picture for some reason, and they had a lot of injured parties on their hands, and — yeah, it was probably best not to spread around the camp just how badly the Avengers had gotten thrashed. Of the two available options… Tony couldn't leave.

"Easy, Rogers," he murmured. "Nothing personal." Steve had bandages on both arms, and another on his side, along with a _smell_ that sent Tony reeling away. At least one of the wounds was badly septic.

Steve was shifting and twitching like he was in the throes of a nightmare. Tony got the shirt slit open and was trying to slide it off his shoulders when Steve suddenly cried out in his sleep and flung out his arm.

There was no time to block and Tony braced himself… but Steve turned out to be weak as a kitten. Tony lowered his arm back to the table as gently as he could. "That's it, Cap. We're just getting you patched up here. Try not to knock any of us across the room, all right?" Steve obligingly settled down.

Aaron had been busy at one of the counters, prepping instruments and such. Once Steve's shirt had been dealt with, he returned and carefully peeled back the bandage on Steve's side. There were…

There were fucking _ribs_ visible.

Jean popped back in. "Sam and Natasha are asleep, or close to it. Clint's as comfortable as I can make him, but the leg is badly damaged. I don't know how they made the trip back here."

"Kel wired the two of them up on stimulants," Aaron said. "That's how."

"Because of him, I assume?" Jean gestured to Steve.

Aaron nodded. "They probably saved his life. They could have easily lost their own doing it."

Jean gave a faint sigh. "I think my response to that particular judgment call will depend on whether or not we lose Captain America today. Do you know yet…?"

"No, not yet," Aaron said. "If I can get him stabilized in the next few hours, then I'll be optimistic, but there's a lot of work to do first."

"All right. Tony, if you want me to take over—"

"No," Aaron interjected.

Tony did a double-take. "You can't possibly want me in this job. _Nobody_ wants me in this job."

"It's your voice, Tony," Aaron said. "He's calmer when he can hear you. If you can, I'd like you to stay and help me, and keep talking."

That was… so completely transverse to any response he'd been expecting that the only thing Tony could think to say was, "About what?"

"It doesn't matter. Anything you can keep going for a while. Something that makes you feel calm. He'll pick up on that."

Tony spread his arms helplessly. "I'm not a nurse!"

"I'm not a surgeon," Aaron said. "But here we are."

_When Steve finds out about this, he's going to be pissed._ Tony took a quick look behind him, like maybe an escape route would present itself or it would turn out that Aaron meant some _other_ Tony… but, of course, there was no such luck.

He grit his teeth. _Help or leave_. And he wasn't going to leave. "Tell me what to do."

 


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for the aftermath of medical experimentation.

The first time Sam woke up probably didn't even count. He surfaced long enough to register lying in a bed in a dark room, feeling like he'd recently been sat on by an elephant. Then the fifty-pound weights that someone had rudely attached to his eyelids dragged them back down, and it all went grey.

 

* * *

 

The second time Sam woke up went a little better in the sense that it lasted more than two seconds. He opened his eyes, and discovered that it was daytime when the light sizzled along his optic nerves and lit his brain on fire.

He groaned and threw his arm over his face, which killed the light but kicked off new waves of pain from the impact. Every inch of him hurt. Maybe some inches he didn't even have. It felt like he'd pulled every muscle and bruised every bone simultaneously, and that probably wasn't so far off from the truth.

Okay, so… okay. Pieces from the last twenty-four hours were all jumbled up in his head. He remembered Kel arriving with Natasha and Clint in tow, Clint half-draped over Natasha's shoulders and already in that partially dissociated state where his brain was pushing his body along by sheer force of will. He remembered Kel saying… probably some pretty important stuff about risks that had gone in one ear and out the other. Then her first aid kit had come out, and he and Natasha (not Clint, because they weren't about to accelerate the metabolism of someone who'd been poisoned) had gotten an intravenous injection of whatever damned alien potion they were all trusting their lives to.

(Yes, looking back on it, Sam _did_ wonder what the hell had happened to his life to make a move like that seem reasonable. Help _one_ super-soldier take down _one_ seventy-year fascist conspiracy for mass murder and global domination, and suddenly the whole thing goes completely off the rails.)

Anyway. Drugs had happened. And after that, Sam remembered feeling absolutely _awesome_. Like, _grab your running shoes, Steve, it's time for a rematch_ kind of awesome. They'd headed out, and the miles had just melted away. Even the inevitable attacks from the nastier elements of forest's wildlife had seemed like mere inconveniences. He'd felt stronger and faster than he'd ever been in his life, or would be again.

Eventually, the euphoria had begun to slip away, leaving a sort of… distance in its place. That was where his recollection started to leave gaps. At some point, they'd reached the road; he had some images of Clint on a second litter, and others of him on crutches, but he couldn't put them in any kind of order. He remembered noting, in a detached sort of way, that the rope burn on his hand was growing rapidly worse, but the pain wasn't interesting enough to register. He was pretty sure he and Nat had both zoned out on their surroundings for long stretches of time, leaving Kel to handle their defense entirely on her own — exactly what they'd once tried to convince her not to do. She'd vanished more than once, only to return bloody or limping, and Sam remembered not being terribly interested in that, either.

Try as he might, he couldn't remember crossing the barrier, although obviously they'd done so. He did remember stepping off the road at the last minute to avoid parading their casualties in front of the entire camp. Then came some blurry stuff that had ended with him lying down on something soft.

That something, Sam cautiously ascertained, was a narrow cot that had been set up in the anteroom to the camp infirmary. To his right, a curtain blocked his view of the rest of the room. It hung from a curtain rod that was a distinctly different shade of wood than the rest of the building — clearly a recent addition. Above him and just to the left was the skylight that was trying to murder him.

Approaching footsteps gave him a few seconds' warning before Aaron appeared from around the curtain. He brought along a little wooden stool, which had the freshly hewn look of something that had been built very recently, and sat down next to him.

"Do you sign?" his lips asked silently, along with what Sam had to assume were the corresponding gestures.

He grimaced. "Sorry, man, I don't."

"It's all right," Aaron said, very softly. "But if you did, this would be quieter."

And yeah, even though his voice was low, his words and Sam's own still ricocheted like machine gun fire around Sam's very tender skull.

Sam moaned. He _really_ should have paid more attention to the 'risks and side effects' speech.

"I'll keep it short," Aaron said, his voice just above a whisper. "Most of your injuries are healed. The only holdout is the scrape on your left palm. You picked up a bacterial infection from the water, and I'm waiting for the latest culture to come back clean before I close it up. You're on IV fluids for dehydration, and it'll take another day or so for the hangover to wear off. Do you have any questions?"

One certainly sprang to mind. "How's Steve doing?"

"Better," Aaron said. "We've stopped the advance of the infection, and his immune system is beginning to recover. I'd like to see one more day with continued improvement before I declare us to be out of the woods, but at this point I'm very optimistic that he'll pull through."

_Optimistic_. The word, counterintuitively, put a nasty twist in Sam's guts. _Optimistic_ meant that _pessimistic_ was also in play. In all his chemically induced detachment, he'd never processed the idea that Steve might not make it.

"If you'd been even a few hours later," Aaron continued softly, "I don't think anything could have saved him. You truly did save his life, all of you."

Sam gave a quick nod, and tried hard to pick up some of that optimism for himself. They'd done all they could. Now it was up to the doctors, and to Steve.

"How about the rest of the team?" he asked. "Nat, Clint, are they okay?"

"Yeah, we're good." Clint's voice came from somewhere off to the right, as loud as cannon fire. "About damn time you woke up."

Natasha's voice, low and deadly: "The next person who shouts will have their throat ripped out."

Aaron presumably didn't hear the responses, but of course he saw Sam flinch. "Did you get your answer?"

"Yeah, got it. We can go back to quiet time now."

Aaron changed out Sam's IV — yes, it was another of those pods, and frankly Sam had had it up to _here_ with goddamned plants — then rested a cool, damp cloth over Sam's eyes, and that was pretty much the end of that.

 

* * *

 

Third time was the charm.

Sam cautiously opened his eyes, and this time the light didn't stab him in the face. He felt somewhere in the vicinity of human again. Further investigation revealed that he was dressed in clean clothes, and the IV was gone. His left hand, where the rope burn had been, was fully healed.

He sat up slowly, and breathed through a moment of lightheadedness that quickly passed. There was still some pain, but it was 'vigorous workout' pain rather than 'fell off a cliff' pain.

The curtains were open, revealing the other occupants of the room to be Natasha, Clint and Kel. Natasha was sitting at the foot of the next cot over, with one leg tucked beneath her and her chin resting on the other knee. She looked to be in about the same state as Sam was: up and dressed, and no longer on the verge of murdering people for speaking too loudly. The object of her attention was Clint, in the final cot. He was the only one of them who still looked like a patient. Kel was leaning against the wall between them.

The atmosphere was far too relaxed for anyone to have gotten bad news, so Sam had to assume that Steve was still stable.

"Yeah, it's fine," Clint was saying. "I always say it isn't a party until someone's replacing a chunk of my skin with something else."

"It will be your own skin," Kel told him, in the tone of voice of someone who'd been repeating herself a lot.

"Heard that one before. Still not buying it." Clint looked over. "Hey, man, nice of you to join us. How're you feeling?"

"Better than I did the last time," Sam said. "Whenever that was. What day is it, anyway?"

"Back on Earth, it's still Friday," said Natasha, ever helpful. "But if you mean locally, we got back to camp about thirty-six hours ago."

Kel added, "Aaron says you and Natasha are free to go whenever you feel ready."

Sam glanced toward the obvious omission.

"Nah, I'm still in 'wait and see' mode," Clint said. He gestured to his leg, which was hidden beneath the sheets. "They sliced a bunch of dead stuff away, and now they're checking to make sure they got it all, and if there's enough… healthy whatever left over to try and grow some of it back."

"Wow," Sam said quietly. "How are you doing with all that?"

Clint gave a shrug that was just a little too studied. "It wasn't my hands and it wasn't my eyes, and I'm not dead, which was better than I figured I'd do after that fuckin' thing stung me. However the rest of this plays out, I'll deal. Steve's doing better, by the way," he added. "Not conscious yet, but word is he's on the upswing."

"Yes, more stable now," Kel said. "The infection drains, the fever goes down. Maybe awake as soon as tomorrow."

Sam accepted both the good news and the change of subject with a nod. "Can we see him?"

"Aaron is there now," Kel said. "When he finishes, you can go in for a short time."

Obviously Sam was thrilled to hear that Steve was on the mend, and that Clint was going to survive what might have been the most incompetent field treatment in history. They'd accomplished the mission and brought everyone home — that was a win.

Still. He couldn't help but notice that their very first skirmish with the enemy had put two of their number into intensive care, and could have very easily turned out even worse. He wasn't sure how, but they needed to improve their track record and fast if they were going to survive the battles still to come.

 

* * *

 

"…the holy grail, of course, is direct nerve interface, but sometimes you really do have to crawl before you can walk. Or, in this case, walk very slowly before you can run. Anyway…"

The words were real long before anything else was.

"…so that's the basic structure, carbon fiber — prosaic, I know, but it does the job. For the ankle joints…"

They seemed to fade in and out… or maybe that was _him_ fading in and out. He couldn't tell.

"…all of which is combined with the readouts from the gyroscopic sensors. Now, this is a critical subsystem, and I'm still not convinced that I have your full attention, so let's take this from the top."

Steve was listening. Maybe not… understanding, exactly, but listening.

It was Tony's voice. Tony was talking to him. That, for some reason, was important. Steve couldn't quite remember _why_ … he just knew it was true.

Tony was talking to him, but he didn't think Steve was _listening_ to him. Steve was pretty confused about… almost everything, but _that_ was, without question, something he needed to fix.

It was quite a lot of muscles to coordinate — talking and moving his arm all at the same time — but after a few false starts he managed to send one of his hands inching outward in the direction the voice was coming from. "I'm listening, Tony," he said.

It came out pretty slurred, but… Tony would get it. Of course he would.

"It sounds amazing," he added, on general principle.

The voice stopped. That wasn't what he'd wanted.

Then there was a sudden clatter like… like someone had stood up really fast and knocked over their chair.

"Hey, uh, medical people?" Tony said, only now he was further away. "Someone? He's talking back."

 

* * *

 

The next time Steve awoke, it was to a dark, silent room.

His eyes were slow to adjust. He tracked the minimal amount of ambient light to a set of skylights in the ceiling. The color of the sky suggested that it was either early dawn or late dusk.

He waited, and more details slowly took shape. This was not the room where… where he last remembered waking. It was larger. The surface he was lying on was higher off the ground. He could see countertops and cupboards that were scaled for human use.

He wasn't stapled down anymore.

At least, Steve didn't think he was. He was covered to the shoulders with a sheet, which made it tough to tell what condition he was in. There was no pain to speak of. In fact, he was barely feeling anything at all, like his body was just an afterthought.

A rescue? And medical attention? Was that even possible? If it was, he had no recollection of it happening, aside from those few snatches of Tony's voice that were already starting to fade like a dream.

He knew, in a distant sort of way, that he should probably be reacting more strongly to the situation… but he couldn't muster the energy. He felt hollowed out, like someone had opened him up like a pumpkin and scooped out his insides. (Which, in fairness, was more or less what had happened. He didn't remember all of it — at some point he'd passed out — but what he did remember was… vivid.)

From somewhere behind him and to the side, a door opened, and then shut. Footsteps. Then a woman crossed his view. It was Wanda.

She glanced at him quickly on her way past, but pulled up short when she realized that he was awake. "Steve?" Her voice was oddly muffled, like Steve was listening underwater. "Oh my God, I'm so sorry, I just stepped out for a minute to check on Clint." She smiled at him. "Hey. It's good to see you awake again. How are you?"

"I'm not sure," Steve said, honestly. " _Where_ am I?"

"You're in the camp hospital," Wanda said. "Wait a second, I'll turn up the lights a little." She disappeared from his view.

A few moments later, the light from overhead began to increase. Steve was left momentarily baffled as to how Wanda could have turned the sun up higher, until he realized that some kind of leafy vine was strung up along the frames of the skylights, and its leaves were faintly glowing.

That was bizarre.

But not the point. Wanda was here, and she looked… fine. Not restrained, not branded. Not like a prisoner. But that shouldn't have been possible — not this soon.

"There, that's better," Wanda said when she returned. "They do everything with plants here. It's very strange. Aaron will be here in a few minutes — you remember Peter told us about his husband, right? He's the one who's been healing you."

Too much, too fast. Steve gave his head a quick shake. "Wanda, if this is the labor camp, how are you… You weren't supposed to be—"

"No, it's okay," she said quickly. "We took it over. It's just us now — our team, and Jean's, and the people who were abducted."

"What?" But that was exactly what they _couldn't_ do. The time lag. Ten months, they had to hold out for ten months. They had to _wait_. Unless… "How long was I out?"

"This is the seventh morning since you were taken," Wanda told him. She was beginning to look concerned. "Steve, it's okay. You're safe. We did it so we could bring you back."

"Did what?"

Wanda blinked and looked away quickly. "Aaron will be here very soon," she said again. "Maybe you should rest until—"

" _Wanda_. Tell me everything that's happened."

Bit by bit, as Steve listened in growing shock and disbelief, she laid out the whole thing.

When it was done, Steve had to turn his head away to keep from… he wasn't sure what.

"It was the only way to get you back," Wanda said quietly.

_Then you should have left me there_.

"Five months," he said instead. "We have to hold off an alien army for _five months_."

"Jean doesn't think it'll be nearly as long as that," Wanda said. "We're already working on plans to delay them. We have the time. We're going to be ready."

Steve couldn't answer. He heard her stir, then take a step back.

"Aaron just got here," she told him. "I'll go tell the rest of the team that you're awake — I'm sure everyone else will want to see you as soon as you're ready."

He heard the door again. Distant voices. A different set of footsteps approaching.

Steve closed his eyes. The whole situation had spun so far out of control. He'd never _dreamed_ that… They were stranded on an alien world for ten months still, with only the most primitive of weaponry, _vastly_ outnumbered, and they'd given away their only advantage — surprise.

Because of _him_.

Wars had casualties. Steve knew this. He'd been one. They were going to lose people, including the civilians they'd all supposedly come through to protect.

They should have— all right, maybe not Wanda, but _someone_ on the team should have known better than this. Natasha, Clint, Sam… one of them should have been able to make the tough call: that a hundred twenty lives were more important than one. That Steve had been lost. He would have accepted it; he'd done that before, too.

They should have known better.

Above him, the morning sky was growing brighter. It lit up the face of the young man who was now standing over Steve's bed. Steve folded away his distress and turned to face his new visitor.

"Good morning, Captain," the young man said, aloud and in sign. "My name is Aaron. I've been treating your injuries. It's nice to have you back with us. How do you feel?"

Steve had only fragments of ASL vocabulary — not nearly enough to hold a conversation — but he knew enough at least to speak clearly. "Exhausted," he said. "Which seems like a bad sign when I just woke up."

"I'm afraid that'll last a while longer," Aaron replied with a sympathetic smile. His voice, like Wanda's, seemed to be coming from a distance. "Your body has been through a significant amount of trauma. A full recovery is going to take time. I'm going to check on your injuries, okay? And if you feel yourself dozing off again, just go with it."

That wasn't going to happen.

Steve watched carefully as Aaron uncovered each of his arms and legs in turn. All four limbs were splinted where the bones had been shattered. He caught sight of the puncture wounds as Aaron changed the dressings, still open and raw. (Strange… he usually healed faster than that.)

The wound on his side received the same treatment, and Steve made himself watch that, too, even though he could remember…

_Things slipping inside of him… wrenching, tearing pain, inescapable… pieces coming back out—_

_Screaming-howling-begging-breaking—_

He blurted out the first thing that came to mind. "Was Tony here?"

Aaron looked up. "Sorry, what was that?"

_Wondering if this was anything like what Bucky had gone through._

_Wondering if this was even a hundredth of what Bucky had gone through._

"Was Tony here before?" Steve asked, too loud and too desperate, although maybe Aaron couldn't tell. "I just… thought I remembered hearing him."

"Yes, he's been here every evening." Aaron finished taping down a fresh bandage, and stepped away to wash his hands. "At least one of your friends has been with you nonstop since your team got back." He approached the bedside again, and his demeanor softened. "Captain, I can't imagine what happened to you out there," he said quietly. "I only saw the aftermath. But if and when you want to talk about it, I hope you know that you've got a lot of people here who'll be ready to listen."

Steve swallowed. "I'm just trying to put it behind me," he said.

"Understandable." Aaron drew the sheet back up to Steve's shoulders. "Your injuries are healing well," he continued, in his regular tones. "The laceration on your side was badly infected when you first got in, and you're still on antibiotics for it, but I expect it to be fully cleared up in a few more days. Once you've regained some strength, we can get to work on mending the broken bones. It'll take time, but you're going to be all right."

He smiled again. It was a warm, reassuring smile — a good one for a doctor to have. Steve wished that some of that warmth could sink in, but he was still too stunned by what his good prospects had cost.

"Thank you," Steve said, by rote.

"I'd like you to get some more sleep today. Do you have any questions or concerns right now?"

Steve was about to shake his head, but actually, there was something. "Do I have hearing damage?" he asked. "I mean— sorry, I hope that's not—"

"It's all right — I'm familiar with the concept," Aaron said with a grin. "What makes you ask?"

"Everything sounds muffled," Steve said. "It has since I woke up. It's both ears, as far as I can tell."

Somewhat alarmingly, Aaron crossed the room to pull a tall stool out from beneath the far counter, and sat down, putting himself closer to Steve's eye level. "No, there's no physical damage," he said. "I checked when you first arrived."

"No _physical_ damage," Steve repeated. "But there's a reason you're not surprised."

"I don't just have this job because I'm studying to be a nurse," he said. "I'm an empathic healer." He looked away for a second, shyly. "To be honest, it's not something I fully understand myself. I'm very cautious with it. Kel — who you met under unfortunate circumstances — also has empathic capabilities, which are innate in her race. She's been helping me. I'm telling you this," he said, anticipating Steve's protest, "because I want you to understand where our information is coming from. Kel and I agree on what we're able to perceive, but we have no imaging technology of any kind here. It's difficult to confirm—"

"Just tell me. Please."

"The Nyth implanted you with several small objects," Aaron said. "Although neither of us is certain, Kel and I both suspect that they're seeds, which have spread a network of very fine threads through parts of your body. As far as we can tell, they aren't endangering you in any way, but they are suppressing your enhancements. Your accelerated healing, and strength and durability… I'm not seeing any evidence of them anymore. The effect probably extends to your senses, too."

Implanted. _Implanted_. Pieces left behind, squirming beneath his skin. Invading, destroying—

(What the hell _was_ he, if he wasn't—)

Through rigid lips, he asked, "Can you get them out?"

"I would have no idea how, and I don't dare try. Not here. I think there will be more options once we get back to Earth."

Steve stared up at the ceiling. Daylight was streaming in now. It looked like a lovely day out there.

"Who else knows?" he asked.

"Only Kel and I. We've told your team that your condition is stable, nothing more. If you want me to, I can fill them in, but it's entirely your choice."

Steve was no coward. He'd never backed down from a fight in his life, and if he couldn't meet the oncoming war as Captain America, then he'd just have to do it with… whatever else was left. But _that_ moment… the one where the others found out… he couldn't see a way through that moment. It would be better — not just for him, but for them too — if they heard it from someone else.

"Yes, my team needs to be made aware of the situation," he said. "You understand it better than I do. If you could… please explain the relevant facts to them."

"Of course." Aaron stood and walked to Steve's side again. "Steve? You're healing like a healthy adult who very recently endured multiple broken bones, abdominal surgery, and a systemic infection — which is to say, slowly. Please try to be patient with yourself while your body figures out what its new normal is. You'll get there, I promise."

"I understand," Steve said, a terrible lie. "Who's in charge of the camp now?"

"Jean is," Aaron said. "You know who she is, right?"

"I've heard the name. I'd like to see her right away."

Aaron hesitated. "I'd really prefer it if you got some more sleep. Can it wait until this afternoon?"

"No," Steve said. "It can't. Please."

He continued to stare at the ceiling while Aaron left and the room returned to silence. A sort of blankness descended. He felt as featureless as the bare wooden walls.

Some time later, the door opened again.

Jean was older than Steve had expected, given that her team all seemed to be so young. She was strikingly tall, with a muscular build and a confident stride.

"Captain Rogers," she said. "Good morning. My name is Jean. I was told you wanted to see me?"

If Steve could have stood up, or even sat up, he would have done it. Anything to bring himself closer to her level. But his body was useless — just a shell for his rage.

(Part of him knew that this was… displacement, or something like that. A reaction to all the revelations that had just been thrown at him. That bit of awareness was there on the outskirts, but it wasn't strong enough to make a difference.)

"Do you know what you've done?" Steve asked.

She paused, and shut the door behind her. "Most days, I like to imagine that I do, yes. Would you care to be more specific?"

"I can be a lot more specific. You overthrew the camp—"

"Yes, I did."

"—and you left every human on this planet vulnerable to enemy attack! How can you possibly expect to keep the population safe for the next ten months with a defense force of _six_?"

Her head tilted ever so slightly. "Interesting," she said calmly. "I make it nine, myself. Some of whom, admittedly, you couldn't be expected to know."

Steve scoffed. "And how many do you think the enemy will send against us?"

"Several hundred at least," Jean replied, and this time her jaw noticeably tightened. "A figure in the low thousands is not outside the realm of possibility."

Dear _God_. "You made the wrong call," Steve told her, his voice shaking, "and if you can't _see_ that it was the wrong call, then you had no right to make it."

"I suppose the right call would have been to leave you there?"

"You're damned right! One life for a hundred twenty is—"

"I considered it."

Jean didn't raise her voice, but the sudden steel in her tone pulled Steve up short.

She didn't flinch or break eye contact, not for a second. "I considered it," she said, " _very_ carefully. When you get a moment, you should thank Romanoff for saving your life: she's the one who swayed me the other way."

A chill washed over him at her words, but it still wasn't enough to drown the anger. "So instead you chose to start a war," Steve said. "Have you ever fought in one?"

"No," she said. "I never served."

"Then you can't possibly—"

"Kel, on the other hand, has been in and out of active combat situations for over half her life," Jean continued. "In fact, her people don't have a word for 'soldier': they consider it to be synonymous with 'adult'. If she had told me that our chances were slim, I would have believed her. She did not. If any member of your team had been reluctant to volunteer, I would have reconsidered. They were not. I did not make this decision lightly, or unilaterally. The circumstances changed, and I responded in the manner that, in my informed and considered opinion, maximized the chances of returning everyone safely to Earth. Including you. And _you_ , Captain, have _startlingly_ strong opinions for someone who learned of the situation all of five minutes ago."

They glared at each other, matching will versus will… until some shared piece of tension abruptly snapped. Steve breathed and looked away. Jean's shoulders relaxed, and she sank down onto the stool that Aaron had vacated.

"You know," she said after a while, "I admired you greatly when I was a child. When the news broke that you had come back, I remember thinking… that I was grateful for the opportunity to share an era with you." She glanced at him quickly, and the corner of her mouth curled up. "I suppose it's neither here nor there. Just something that's been on my mind lately."

Steve never quite knew what to do with sentiments like that. Captain America had been born in the propaganda reels and neatly packaged by the history books. That wasn't… _he_ wasn't… whoever it was who'd come out of the ice, it wasn't _that_.

But Jean at least didn't look overawed, or like she was going to start talking about trading cards or something. The statement was just _there_ — a small window into her thoughts.

Of the various people who'd considered killing him, she was certainly among the more gracious about it.

Steve groped for a non incendiary topic, and came up with, "How do you get a team of nine?"

"Your six, plus myself, Kel and Tony," Jean replied. "I don't include Spider-Man, of course."

Steve stared. "Spider-Man? He's _here_?"

"Oh, that's right, you haven't seen him yet. Yes, I'm afraid he followed your team through the portal," she said. "Two more pieces of information have turned up since then: he answers to the first name 'Peter', and he is fifteen years old. Unfortunately, it isn't possible to shout him back to Earth, or else I assure you Tony would have done so already."

Steve sighed heavily, and wished that he had the strength to raise his hand to his eyes. "That was my fault," he said. "I saw him before we left. I should have made sure he stayed behind."

"I imagine there will come a time when all of us are called to account for those things that we should have done better," Jean said quietly. "For now, though, I think we need to focus on the facts as they are, not as we wish they were."

She wasn't wrong.

He found himself staring up at the ceiling again. "Here's another fact for you, then. I'm not… I just found out from your friend Aaron that those aliens… they put something inside me that's suppressing the serum. I might recover from _this_ —" he jerked his chin at the sheet covering his useless body "—but your army has one less super-soldier in it."

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her jaw drop. "That's appalling," Jean breathed. "I'm so sorry. Is it… causing you any pain?"

"Actually, I can't tell." He threw her a grimace that would hopefully pass for a grin. "The painkillers in this place are impressive."

"A perk of having empaths on staff," Jean said. "Captain, I—"

"Steve. Especially given the circumstances."

"Steve." She took a careful breath, and Steve could feel her marshalling her words into strict formation. "You've received an overwhelming amount of distressing news in a very short time. This is not to downplay your concerns — only to ask that you reserve judgment for now. Let yourself recover a little more. Give us a chance to show you what we're working on. Can you do that?"

The fierce burst of anger was finally draining away, leaving only crushing exhaustion in its place. What she was framing as a request was in fact the only option left. The decision had been made; he couldn't change it.

And now there was a mission in front of him again: as always, to save as many as he could. If nothing else, he understood what he had to do.

"I don't seem to have a choice," Steve said. Acknowledgment, not accusation.

Jean gave a slight shrug. "You could berate me some more. I'm available."

"Maybe another time." His eyelids were growing heavy. A little more recovery time might not be such a bad idea. Except he thought… it suddenly felt like there'd been something else. An earlier comment that he'd overlooked. But it wasn't coming to him.

"Then perhaps I should let you get some rest," said Jean. She stood and headed for the door. "I'm sure the rest of your team will be along as soon as you're cleared to have visitors."

The rest of the team — _that_ was it. "Before you go," Steve said, "Wanda mentioned something about checking on Clint. Did something happen to him?"

She turned back. "Yes, I'm afraid it did. He's in no danger," she added quickly. "He's in our recovery ward—" she gestured toward whatever was on the other side of the door "—but I think Aaron will release him today. In the course of rescuing you, he was stung on the leg by one of this planet's assorted venomous species. As I understand it, significant amounts of necrotic tissue had to be removed, but Kel and Aaron were able to save the leg. They tell me there's a good chance that he'll eventually regain most if not all of his mobility."

Guilt washed over him, and Steve had to close his eyes. _Most if not all_ was just a polite way of saying _permanent damage_. Because of him.

"I should go see him," Steve said, and tried to muster the strength to move his useless body. He was still… numb, detached. Just a brain floating pointlessly in a sack of meat. He _couldn't_ … what had his team even _done_ this for, if he couldn't—

Jean suddenly appeared right at his side. "I think that isn't possible right now," she said gently, "and I know Aaron would have my head if I helped you try." Her hand came to rest very lightly on Steve's shoulder. "Please, Steve. They're all safe. You have my word."

At the absolute limits of his strength, he'd managed to pick his head up off the table, and he could only hold it a few seconds. Steve sank back again in defeat.

"Was anyone else hurt?" he asked.

"Sam and Natasha both sustained minor injuries, now healed."

He nodded. All right. He'd just seen Wanda, who was fine. Vision was… well, not much could threaten him. They had Spider-Man to worry about now, but it sounded like Jean wasn't going to let him endanger himself. That only left…

"What about Tony?" Steve asked. "How is he?"

He thought that her hand squeezed his shoulder a little before she stepped back.

"It's been a difficult ten months," Jean said. "Tony is as well as can be expected, and he's been a great help. I don't know precisely what happened to split apart the Avengers, but I'll tell you the same thing I've told the rest of them: there will be no public brawling between you. If you can't be civil in each other's company, stay away from each other."

Steve bristled at the scolding, not that he was in any position to make an issue of it. "If there are problems," he said stiffly, "they won't start with me."

"Yes, that's terribly reassuring." She'd reached the door again. "I'll stop by again tomorrow. Sleep well, Steve."

And then he was alone.

It didn't last long. Aaron came back almost immediately. Steve nodded his way on autopilot through more medical checks and the promise of visitors the next time he woke up, and finally sedation.

It had been the right call, coming here. Hadn't it? He'd been so certain. And now it had all gone so wrong.

He closed his eyes.

 


	21. Chapter 21

"Knock, knock."

Jean looked up from what used to be the commandant's desk. "Hi, Tony," she said. "What do you need?"

"Nothing, just a social call," Tony said. "Saw the light on, figured I'd stop by."

It was something of a novelty to be awake past sunset without chemical assistance. The sedatives were still being phased out of the food — doing it too quickly would have triggered withdrawal symptoms — but they'd reached the point now where everyone who wanted to could stay awake for an hour or two after dark. Most of the night owls used the extra time to socialize or otherwise unwind, but Jean devoted it to work. She'd taken over the main office in the administration building, and it was typical to see light escaping the skylight well after the sun had set.

The office, like just about everything in camp, was strictly utilitarian in design: desk (wood), chair (wood), filing cabinet (wood), overhead light (plant). There were no personal touches. Certainly no notion of ergonomics.

The invitation hadn't been stated, but Tony decided to take it as read, and strolled in. "So, how are things?"

"Under control," Jean said. "Where's your shadow?"

"Showers. He's still a bit tense about getting caught with his mask off."

"I assume you've mentioned that the odds of anyone recognizing him—"

"Yeah. Didn't work."

The desk was strewn with paper. Jean was apparently one of those people who didn't file things in drawers or even stacks so much as vicinities. Tony sat himself down on a free corner, and politely ignored the unimpressed expression that this prompted.

"So I hear Rogers is awake," he said.

"Yes, I spoke to him this morning."

"I think I saw you leaving afterward," Tony said. "You had the look of someone who'd just gotten the full Steve Rogers experience. How'd that go?"

She finally set her pencil down. "We talked."

"And?"

"We disagree on certain issues."

"In other words, you got Rog—"

"Tony, don't be crass."

"—but good," he concluded. "Did he do the disappointed eyebrows? Those are killers."

Jean fixed him with an annoyingly incisive look. "I'm _not_ getting involved in this fight between you, and that includes allowing either of you to use me to score points off the other. Clear?"

Damn. Tony held up his hands, acknowledging the hit. "But if you ever decide to take a turn for the petty…"

"I know where to find you. Was there anything else?"

"Yeah," he said. "Whatcha working on?"

"If you're looking for the executive summary, I'd have to say: keeping us alive."

Tony sighed. This conversation was turning out to be a certain amount of work. "Wow. Three whole days you've been sitting on that line. Feel better now?"

"Somewhat." Jean selected a sheet from out of the chaos. "If you're really interested, then, for example: the Nyth think we have a hundred twenty-three humans and forty-five Mjentur. We actually have a hundred twenty-eight humans and no Mjentur. We all eat the same food — precisely the same food, or else I would have simply poisoned the guards in the first place. A Mjentur ration is twenty percent larger than a human ration. Under these conditions, all things being equal, one hundred fifty days' worth of supply wagons would feed us for…" Her finger trailed down the page.

"Two hundred and seven days," Tony supplied.

She looked down at the sheet, then back up at him, and blinked several times.

"You've really got to stop being impressed by arithmetic," he added.

"Well." She put a checkmark on the page. "At least I did it right. It turns out I owe certain of my high school teachers an apology. Mathematics really _does_ have relevance in my daily life."

"Really? You were one of those?"

"A single-minded and somewhat obnoxious humanities major, yes. At any rate: two hundred seven days out of the three hundred that we need, assuming all five months' worth of deliveries are carried off without a hitch. But I don't dare gamble our lives on that.

"The garrison is self-sustaining," she continued, leaning back in her chair. "Our food supply is a portion of what they grow. If we take it over in five months' time, and _that_ operation proceeds without a hitch, then we'll have all the supplies we could ever need. But I don't dare gamble our lives on that, either.

"Which brings us to growing our own food. This region doesn't have a well-defined growing season, which is lucky for us. Of course we need the seeds, and my understanding is that we also need a certain type of fertilizer with which to treat the soil. The garrison has both, which means we have to organize a raid, as soon as possible. The only place it makes sense to set up an agricultural operation is the beta site, so we need to select it, secure it, and station permanent construction and farming crews there, also as soon as possible. Two priorities, then: a raiding party, and a survey party."

"Sounds about right."

"The garrison is five days away; the landing site approximately three, but the survey team will also need time, obviously, to survey. Unfortunately, our personnel won't stretch to accommodate both tasks simultaneously, leaving me with the problem of prioritizing."

"Really?" Tony had no reason to doubt her assessment, but it was as good a way as any to keep them talking. "Walk me through it."

Jean located a different piece of paper. "For the survey party: Vision, for security; Wilson, for survival expertise and a military assessment of the site's defensibility; a delegation from the Oregon Six to get an initial estimate of the required building materials; and I'll ask for volunteers from among the non-Avenger combat teams to bolster the numbers. The larger the group, the less appealing it will be to predators, and although I hope the skills are never needed, we may as well start teaching more people how to survive in this planet's wilderness.

"Of those left over for the raiding party, Wanda is absolutely critical to our initial five months and cannot be risked; you're disqualified, likewise. I'd go myself, but at this early stage, I think I need to remain here and… be visible. That leaves Romanoff and Kel running the raid by themselves." She looked up at him. "Unless, of course, you'd consider loaning me young Spider-Man."

"Gee, for a ten-day hike through a forest that nearly killed the last party in less than half that time? Let me think."

"I assumed as much," she said, and set the paper down again. "You see the problem. I'm sure that both of them would tell me that they can handle the job themselves, but it's a greater risk than I'm comfortable taking."

There was one glaring omission from her rundown. "I know Barton's on the DL for the foreseeable future," Tony said, "but Rogers should be up and about in, what, a couple of days? He and Romanoff ended up on the same side — shouldn't be issues with them working together. It's a small delay, but…" He trailed off at her expression. "What?"

"When it comes to other people's medical information, I try to err on the side of discretion," Jean said, "but I think it's fair to tell you that Rogers' recovery will take significantly longer than a few days."

Now _that_ caught him off-guard. "During the DC thing, the man took a couple of gut shots, had his face pulped, and rode an exploding Helicarrier into the Potomac," Tony said. "He was still back on his feet inside of a week. Are you telling me what happened to him out there was _worse_? I mean, it's not like..." His stomach suddenly sank. "Jesus, he's not _dying_ or anything, is he?"

"No, he's not dying," said Jean, and Tony wasn't sure what to make of the almost giddy burst of relief that followed. "But he's not going to be on the active-duty roster any time soon. That's all I'm comfortable saying right now."

_Shit_. Rogers was… okay, aggravating factors aside, there was no denying that he was _useful_. To have him taken out of play this early in the game… no wonder Jean was stressed.

And yet Tony was still convinced that there was something else on her mind. He had seen her leaving the infirmary that morning — that hadn't been a joke — and in a brief, unguarded moment, she'd looked absolutely wrecked. Tony's scale for difficult conversations with Steve Rogers went pretty fucking high, and while he didn't think that Jean's had cracked the 'lied about murdered parents' barrier, there'd clearly been _something_ that had gotten under her skin in a serious way. Hence the current fishing expedition.

Except they'd drifted rather far from the topic. "What do you think you'll do?" he asked.

"The raid has to happen first," said Jean. "I want to keep Vision well away from the Nyth settlement, but at least he can provide some extra security for the trip there and back. Then Kel and Romanoff can handle the mission itself. I'm not happy about postponing the survey trip for that long, but it makes even less sense to find a site and then spend the next ten days unable to do anything about it."

Tony nodded. "Makes sense. If you send the surveyors with enough supplies and equipment, they can get to work as soon as they find a site. Minimize further delays."

"I agree."

He tapped his heel idly against the desk. His supply of clever segues had run dry. "So… anything else interesting going on? That you and Rogers talked about, maybe? Not scoring points," he added quickly. "Just making conversation."

Jean's eyes narrowed. "Tony, what are we doing right now?"

"Nothing! No, I just…" God, he _sucked_ at this. "You seemed a bit… thrown this morning, and — well, maybe I was wondering if… um. You wanted to talk about it."

That last sentence had been mostly delivered to the floor. And this was _ridiculous_ — he was a grown man, for fuck's sake — but some… fragment of his original software was convinced that he'd Done It Wrong and was about to be yelled at.

Jean gave a faint sigh, then pushed back her chair and hopped up onto the desk to sit beside him (because she just _had_ to be taller).

"You could have led with that," she said.

"I was also interested in the 'keeping us alive' situation." He risked a sidelong glance at her. She didn't seem upset. "And I wasn't sure if we… talk about things."

Her hand alighted on his back for a moment. Tony suspected that the comforting gestures were supposed to be flowing the other way, but it didn't seem right to protest.

"It wasn't Rogers," Jean said quietly after a good long while. "It was actually something I said, that I'd never said aloud before. Did you know that seven days ago was the first time I'd ever killed anyone?" She threw him a tight, sardonic smile. "And by the end of this, I'll be a mass murderer."

Tony breathed out slowly. That one hit a little close to home. "Not the characterization I'd have chosen," he said.

"No? They're going to come for us by the thousands. _Thousands_. And I have to destroy them."

"So they don't destroy us."

"Does it matter? The dead are still dead."

"It matters to the people you're saving," Tony said. "We didn't start this war."

"I escalated it."

"No, I'm pretty sure it was already at maximum escalation when we were stolen from our homes and drugged and fucking _branded_ and thrown into a labor camp."

"And any given footsoldier had exactly zero input into each of those decisions." She held up a hand to forestall his rebuttal. "No, it's all right. I understand what has to be done. I've accepted it. I didn't hesitate, and I won't. But…. perhaps I don't like what it says about me, that I _can_ accept it."

It wasn't quite the same as the guilt that Tony carried (piled deeper and deeper with every new incident — another Sokovia, another New York, another set of deaths with his name on them, tracking all the way back to an Air Force escort in Afghanistan). Then again, maybe it wasn't so different, once the enemy army stopped being _that_ and became a group of people who had been hired to do a job and probably, on balance, didn't deserve to die.

He'd watched Jean carve open Boss Mino's throat, and never once considered that she'd offered him the killing stroke because she hadn't wanted it.

"I wish I had an easy answer," he said. "You're right, the ones who built this planet's economy on slave labor almost certainly won't be the ones dying for it. The truly guilty seldom pay. But the only way you could stop this is by letting people die. They could stop it by letting us go. The way I see it, in the lineup for moral culpability, you're a long way to the back."

"Hm." She leaned in and gave his shoulder a nudge with hers. "Thanks, Tony."

"Any time."

The near-silence that fell was a companionable thing. There was only the sound of his breathing, and hers… and, ever so faintly, a creaking of wooden boards from somewhere out in the hallway.

Oh, for _crying_ out loud.

Tony asked, in sign, "Do you hear that?"

Jean nodded. "Peter, would you care to join us?"

Parker, hanging upside down from the ceiling on all fours, came crawling into view from down the hall. He hopped down to the floor and gave a little wave. "Hey, everyone. What's up?"

Tony crossed his arms. "Really? Eavesdropping now?"

"Well, you were talking, and I didn't want to interrupt, so…"

"So you figured you'd just hang around until we were done? On the ceiling where we wouldn't see your shadow?"

"Habit from sneaking home late?" He turned away and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "Yeah, okay, my bad. Sorry. By the way," he added to Jean, "I don't think what you're doing makes you a bad person. You're definitely _scary_ , but… it's only because you have to be."

"Thank you, Peter," Jean said gravely. "I appreciate that."

"Also, um. I sort of heard you talking about a raid on the alien camp? And how you have to put off something else that you wanted to do at the same time?"

Tony did _not_ like where this was going.

"It's because you need super-strength people, and you don't have Captain America, right? That only leaves the other guy, Vision, and that's why you can only do one mission at a time." Peter looked from one of them to the other. "Well, _I_ could go."

The words flew out of him by pure reflex. "Absolutely not," Tony snapped, and hopped down from the desk. "Under no circumstances do you set foot outside this camp until the beta site is fully secured. Do you understand?"

Peter's eyes went wide with indignation. "Why not?"

"Did you notice the part where the last team came back half-dead?"

"That was because they only had normal-strength people!" Peter turned back to Jean. "If you had Captain America, would you send him? Him and the Black Widow and… and _her_." Peter ran his fingers down his face. "Would that be enough?"

"It's a group I would at least be willing to consider," Jean said.

"Okay, well, just so you know, I'm a lot stronger than Captain America is. And faster. In Germany, I pretty much kicked his ass."

Tony cleared his throat sharply.

"Or I _would_ have, if that other guy hadn't turned into a giant," Peter amended, which was only marginally better. "So I don't see why I can't do it instead."

"It isn't simply a matter of strength," Jean said, who for some reason was approaching this like a reasonable conversation. "Captain Rogers has survival training and experience at traversing hostile terrain."

"I fight crime in New York! There's some pretty hostile terrain out there!"

"Did I turn invisible all of a sudden?" Tony asked. "The answer is _no_. _No_ is the answer. Done. Why are we still talking?"

"Because you're putting other things off when you don't have to!" Peter was still trying to shut Tony out in favor of pitching Jean. "Come on, you said that I'd have chances to help. You _need_ my help. I'm the only one here who can do it. _Please_."

Jean was… _fuck_. She was thinking about it. She was _actually_ —

Anger rushed in so quickly Tony thought his head might explode. "Jean, if you _dare_ —"

"It's all right," she said, and stepped down from the desk to stand beside him. "I'm not overruling you. Peter, I appreciate the offer, but it won't be possible."

He gave an exasperated sigh. "I'm _not_ going to get hurt. I brought a ton of webbing. I'll be careful, and do whatever the other two say—"

"Because you're really showing off your capacity to follow instructions now," Tony said.

"Mr. Stark, I—"

"No, don't you 'Mr. Stark' me, kid. I thought we had a deal. What happened to getting home in one piece?"

"What happened to not standing by when other people are in danger?"

"That's exactly what I'm doing," Tony snapped. "Protecting you from a danger that you _clearly_ don't understand."

Peter crossed his arms and turned his face away. "Whatever," he muttered.

Jean put her hand on Tony's shoulder and eased him back a step, taking his place in front of Peter.

"You made your argument," she said to him. "I understand that you want to help. But it's Tony's call, and I support his decision."

"But I—" But all Jean had to do was raise one finger, and he broke off again.

"I checked with Kel and Aaron," she continued. "You haven't had your physical yet. We discussed this last week."

"I know, but the thing is, since _this_ happened—" he gestured vaguely at himself "—I've actually been _really_ healthy, so—"

"That isn't the point," Jean said. "This environment, by virtue of being in the wrong universe, is damaging to us. We all need regular medical attention. First thing tomorrow morning, you are going to see Aaron at the infirmary. This is nonnegotiable."

He scowled down at the tops of his shoes.

"Peter?"

"Yeah, okay," he said. "I just… I want to _do_ something. Since I've gotten here, all I've done is carry stuff. I can do a lot more than that."

"I'm aware." Jean stepped to one side so that she was facing both of them again. "It's getting late. I propose we all call it a night. Agreed?"

Tony gave a curt nod.

"Fine," Peter said with another sigh. He glanced at Tony for a second. "I, uh…" But then he visibly lost his nerve. "I guess I'll just go, then," he muttered, and slouched his way back out of the room.

As soon as he was gone, Tony threw his arms up out of sheer what-the-fuckery. "I thought— we had this whole conversation the day we took the camp. It was a _good_ conversation! I thought he _understood_. What the hell just happened?"

Jean shut the office door. "I'm going to say something that you're not going to like," she said. "Peter clearly feels like he has something to prove. If we give him no opportunities to do so, how long do you think it will be before he manufactures one of his own?"

She was right — Tony _didn't_ like it. "You mean, we tell him to stay put…"

"And he notices that we have no way to enforce it. Yes."

Oh, fantastic. _That_ image certainly wasn't going to give him nightmares. "Please don't tell me you think he should go on the raid."

"No, I don't," Jean said. "But would you be willing to compromise on a training mission? I want to give Wilson and Romanoff at least two more days to rest. That's enough time to send Peter out with Kel on, say, an overnight run. She can show him what the pace and the conditions are like while staying relatively close to the camp."

That… almost sounded like something Tony could live with, if it _ended_ there, but the odds of that happening were slim. "You don't really think he'll back down, do you?"

"Probably not, but if Kel tells him that he needs more training before he's ready for a ten-day mission, perhaps that would be easier to accept than a flat 'no'."

Tony nodded slowly. "All right. That's not bad. As long as you trust her to grasp what a training run is."

"I do," Jean said. "I also trust her to understand how important Peter is to you."

_And_ that was enough transparency for one night. "Right, well." Tony broke eye contact under the pretext of getting the door. "You'll run this by her and let me know?"

"Of course." Jean poured a measure of the dousing potion over the roots of her vine-light, then followed him into the hallway. "It was nice of you to check on me. I appreciate it."

"Yeah, worked out great," Tony said, then immediately regretted it. "Uh. Or possibly a less asshole-ish remark than that."

"You can get back to me with a better version tomorrow. Goodnight, Tony."

 

* * *

 

"So then Kel here — I'm allowed to use your name now, right?"

"I'm not allowed to decide this," Kel said to Clint, "but if you don't, then you are… difficult to impress."

Clint stared at her. " _That's_ what the rule is? How do you get through a conversation if you can't— ugh, whatever. _Anyway_. Kel tosses me across her shoulders — I nearly puked, but that's not the point — and she starts walking the both of us across the river on this half-rotten fallen log. In the dark. I mentioned it was dark, right?"

"Yes," Steve said patiently. "The dark was mentioned."

"Right. And what with it being dark, and me being half out of my head from chimpanzee poison—"

"Did we also mention that Natasha doesn't get to name things anymore?" Sam interjected

"—I didn't realize that this leggy, toothy asshole was creeping up on us from the other side. Looked like a giant furry spider crab, except half its body was mouth. Everything on this planet has too many fuckin' legs, I'm telling you. So we're halfway across when this thing hops up onto the log in front of us. And Kel says to me, 'Keep still,' like I've got any kind of say in the matter. Out comes the sword, Leggy charges, _she_ charges, snicker-snack, and next thing I know it's hitting the water in five or six pieces, and we're sauntering the rest of the way across like not a goddamned thing happened." Clint sat back and jerked his head in Kel's direction. "Seriously, Steve, the kid can play."

"Lucky for all of us," Steve replied.

Kel leaned over in Clint's direction and said quietly, "For j'Brenithi, to speak of an adult like they are a child is one of the worst possible insults. Back home, I would be allowed to stab you now. Not fatally."

He gave a frustrated groan. " _Fine_. The _old lady_ can play — is that better?"

"A little better, yes."

"Awesome. I am going to get on top of these damned rules of yours if it kills us both."

Natasha said, "Clint, stop liaising before you land us in an interplanetary war."

The last time Steve had woken up — which he understood to be _yesterday_ , insofar as the days had any meaning when he only experienced them in ten-minute fragments — Vision had carried him from the camp hospital to a small private cabin just behind it. Aaron had gotten him settled on the cot and shown him how to work the overhead light, then let him know that Kel would be taking over his medical care for a day.

"You're in good hands," he'd said. "I trust Kel completely. I'll be back on shift by tomorrow evening."

While Steve had been unconscious, it hadn't particularly mattered. But no matter how exhausted he seemed to be, he couldn't sleep away his entire recovery, and now she was standing by his bedside and he had to figure out how to deal with it.

This was the first time he'd seen Kel since… well, since the _first_ time he'd seen Kel. (Under unfortunate circumstances, as Aaron had put it.) Steve knew, intellectually, that she'd been instrumental in both the overthrow of the camp and his subsequent rescue, and that she was firmly on humanity's side. But that knowledge couldn't erase what he'd experienced at her hands: full-body, mind-shattering pain like he hadn't known since the Vita-Ray chamber, and helpless rage as he'd watched her toy with Natasha, drawing out the fight for her own amusement.

His team had clearly anticipated some friction between them. They'd shown up en masse with Kel in tow, brimming over with shared stories and other displays of camaraderie.

It was possible that they were overcompensating a little.

Kel had spoken very little during the ongoing recitation. She was giving Steve a knowing look, like maybe she too found the whole thing a bit overdone. He'd been told that she was an empath… sort of, where he still wasn't entirely clear on the 'sort of'. _Not_ a telepath — everyone seemed pretty definite on that, although it turned out that Jean did have a telepath on her team. Kel was an alien, but also half human (not clear on how that one worked, either). And, apparently, she could play.

"Maybe," Kel said, "it's enough of a visit for now. We still need to do other things."

"Yeah, she's right," said Sam, and leaned over to give Steve a pat on the shoulder. "Get to work on mending those bones, all right? We need you out there."

"I'll do my best," Steve replied.

They all filed out — Natasha helped Clint up off the chair that was the room's only other piece of furniture, and handed him his crutches — leaving Steve and Kel alone.

"You have many titles," Kel said. She made no move to approach him yet. "What can I call you?"

"'Steve' is fine," he said. "And you go by 'Kel', right?"

"Yes. j'Brenithi only have one name." She looked down for a moment, the first sign of discomfort he'd seen from her. "Steve, I carry a debt to you. I acknowledge it."

"I hear it's thanks to you I'm still alive," he said cautiously. "I'd say that makes us even."

She tilted her head. "This is your choice. But I think I owe more. The Nyth are very good with biological systems, but the last time they had human prisoners was many lifetimes ago. Things were forgotten. When I first came here, and had to prove that I was useful, part of what I did was to let them learn about human bodies again. I have one, you see. It's why they could disable you so easily — I showed them how." Moving slowly, she stepped forward and took a seat on the chair. "I know what I did to you. And I know, a little, what they did to you also. I made this happen. I'm sorry."

Steve's throat had suddenly gone dry. "That…" He swallowed hard. "That sounds like it cost you something, too."

She shrugged. "I'm a Brenith. We endure. And I'm sorry, also, for today. I know it's uncomfortable. Aaron did a lot of work in a short time, and needs to rest. This leaves only me."

"I understand," Steve said, which was partly true and partly not. He didn't know what to do with her remorse, or with the implication that she too had endured some form of experimentation in that place. No amount of apologies or other conciliatory gestures could change the fact that he _really_ didn't want her touching him.

However, he did want to walk again. There were exactly two people who could make that happen, and Kel was one of them.

"Can I start?" she asked.

Steve buried his apprehensions as deep as they could go. "Go ahead."

Kel shifted the chair forward until she was alongside the cot. There was a process of examining wounds and changing dressings that had become routine, and she went through the same steps as Aaron usually did. Steve watched, detached and numb, as he usually did.

When that was done, Kel laid her hand on Steve's forehead and closed her eyes.

He braced himself — he couldn't help it — but there was no pain. Instead, sensation seemed to trickle down his body like rainwater as select nerves slowly came alive. Steve flexed his fingers, and watched them move in response. Just that tiny act of volition made him feel more like himself than he had in days.

"Better, yes?"

He nodded absently, and stretched out his fingers again. Flex, then stretch.

"Your blood volume is back up," Kel told him, sitting back again. "The other things they took are mostly replaced. Internal injuries are healed. You will be on antibiotics a few more days, but the infection is almost gone. A good time to begin to repair the broken bones."

"How long until I'm back on my feet?" Steve asked.

"You will be able to stand with crutches soon. Not tomorrow, but maybe the next day. To regain strength will take time and work."

"I don't mind the work," he said. "How much… if you can't reverse what they did, can you tell what a hundred percent capacity will look like?"

Kel studied him a moment, and Steve had the sense that she didn't quite understand what kind of answer he was looking for — which was only fair, since he didn't know either.

"You're human," she said. "You're fit. You'll be stronger than me. Stronger than most."

His jaw tightened. "But not like I was."

"No. Not while the Nyth technology is there."

Steve had had a version of this conversation every time he'd been alone with a doctor. He hated, _hated_ the terrible hope that rose up inside him every time — like if he just asked the question the right way, the answer would be different. It made no sense, but he kept asking, and the answer kept crushing him over and over.

"Is there any way you can remove it?"

Her gaze dropped down to his chest and her eyes narrowed. "The pieces I can sense… I think they don't grow anymore," she said. "Maybe I can remove them — I don't want to, even this would be a risk — but doing this wouldn't change the effect. The threads they made are already spread out through most of your body. They prevent the growth of anything more than normal human tissue."

Steve looked away, cravenly. That sick, slick, twisting sensation started up again, like he could feel the fibers creeping around beneath his skin.

"Steve?"

When he made himself look back, Kel held up her arm — the one that ended about a hand's breadth below her elbow.

"This was my sword hand," she told him. "I lost it in battle. It was a part of me — the most important part, I sometimes thought — and it was taken by force. After, I had to learn to do everything again. Like I was in a stranger's body. There are things I will never do as well, and a few I can't do at all. But… even though this was done to me, now it's just another part of me. I don't mean to say it's the same," she added. "I think, from one person to the next, it's never the same. I just… want to tell you that even if the change is permanent, the pain won't be."

Steve blinked quickly against eyes that were suddenly stinging. "That's… thanks," he managed. "I, uh…"

She waited silently. Her expression was… undemanding, like it was equally all right with her if he wanted to say something more, or if he just needed a bit of time.

Steve hadn't expected to be doing this, hadn't wanted to unbury his emotions in front of _her_ of all people… but it felt like she'd opened up a small space where maybe a few things could be said aloud.

"I'm used to people knowing this," he said, "but I guess you probably don't. Before I became… enhanced, I was a lot different than this. My body was smaller and weaker. I couldn't breathe very well, I was in pain a lot of the time, sick… The truth is, I probably didn't have too many more years left. The only question was if it would be pneumonia, the flu, TB… And now, after everything, I'm complaining about _only_ getting to be healthy?" He scoffed. "I'm feeling so damned sorry for myself, and I don't even have the right."

"It was still a loss," Kel said. "Still something stolen. The debt can be real even if it doesn't destroy you."

"Thanks," Steve said again, and managed to put a little more heart into it this time. He looked her in the eyes, and realized for the first time that he wasn't tensed for an attack anymore. "I have to say, you're not exactly what I expected."

Kel smiled. "Yes, I know."

She turned her attention to his right arm. The shattered bone, like each of the others, was currently being immobilized by a thin, rigid cast. "I will fix this one today, then you will rest until tomorrow. There will be a lot of pressure. Ready?"

Steve nodded.

 

* * *

 

Jean's work ethic was above reproach. She began every morning with a brisk ten laps around the camp, followed by combat training with Kel (done out of the way but not out of sight — a not-so-subtle reminder that her role was more than strictly managerial). She ate breakfast with a different group each day. She knew every person by name. She checked in, took notes, and followed up. She worked a full day's shift — usually down in the mines, but she made a point of rotating through each of the different duty stations. At dinner, she announced the day count (just now: two hundred eighty-nine days until the portal) and gave an update on goals met and plans in progress, after which she fielded questions from the camp population, and then she worked in her office until after dark.

Natasha respected her. In this case, she also vehemently disagreed with her.

"You shouldn't delay the search for the new campsite," she said. "Send Vision with the bigger group. Kel and I can handle the break-in by ourselves."

"Yes, I think so too," said Kel.

Jean set her pencil down and folded her hands on the desk. "I don't doubt that you can infiltrate the garrison," she said. "Indeed, I'm counting on it: Vision needs to stay clear of any anti-vibranium countermeasures that might be in place. The part that concerns me is the five days' worth of hostile forest between here and there. A two-person team does not provide enough security."

"I'm not saying it's going to be a _fun_ trip," Natasha said, "but it is survivable. More to the point, you can't afford to lose this much momentum. You've stabilized the day-to-day living situation, and that's a good start, but it isn't enough. People need to feel like they're progressing toward something. The survey mission has already been announced, and now suddenly it's delayed by ten days? It sets a bad precedent."

"More than ten," Kel added. "The next supply delivery is not long after. I think you will keep everyone in camp until they leave."

"I'm seriously considering it," Jean admitted. "If that goes badly, we're going to need an _entirely_ different game plan."

"All the more reason to send both missions out as soon as possible," Natasha said.

"Too dangerous," Jean said. "I understand your point, but my decision stands."

Kel's scowl had quite a bit of impatience to it, like this was an argument she'd had before. "Jean, I have been to many wars, and I know this: you can't fight one with no risk. If you try to keep everyone safe, you keep no one safe."

"This is not a crisis," Jean retorted. "Our backs aren't up against a wall here. I will take risks when they are proportionate to the gains."

Kel said pointedly, "There is another time when two will have to be enough. Do you remember this?"

Ooh, a private reference. Natasha loved those.

"When there's no other choice and we have nothing left to lose," Jean said tightly. "Right now, we do have other choices, and quite a lot to lose. I'm not happy about the delay either, but it's ten days — twelve at the most — out of three hundred. That's—"

"Four percent," Tony announced as he came through the office door, Peter in tow as usual. "If you were wondering."

"I actually had that one," Jean told him, "but thank you. Hello, Peter."

"Hey," the boy said, without enthusiasm. He was dressed up in the original Spider-Man costume plus khaki jacket that he'd been wearing when he'd first arrived.

Tony's expression upon seeing Natasha was equally unenthusiastic. "Oh," he said. "I didn't know… I only heard Kel."

"No, it's fine," Jean said, and waved one hand in resignation. "Let's have all the disagreements simultaneously."

"You're still talking about the two missions, right?" Peter said. "I already told you how _I_ think you should fix it."

"And I already told you _no_ ," Tony countered, "so let's move on."

Peter folded his arms and produced the sort of protracted sigh that only a hard-done-by teenager could manage.

It was clear in an instant that Peter's proposed solution was that _he_ provide the extra security for the raiding party and oh, that was a bad idea for all the obvious reasons, but Tony was shutting it down in precisely the wrong way. Natasha paused a second to consider her words, because the last thing she wanted to do was throw fuel on that particular fire… and, unfortunately, Kel chose that moment to dive in.

"It probably isn't as dangerous as you think," she said to Tony. "He's untrained, yes, but he has power."

"See?" Peter said.

" _Not_ helping," Tony growled at her.

"Kel, the standards of your childhood don't apply to humans," Jean added. "We've been through this."

"I'm not a _child_!" Peter snapped.

"I didn't say that you were."

Kel somehow saw fit to add, "If he came with us, it would solve everyone's problems."

Tony rounded on her. "Do I currently have the blood pressure of a man whose problems have all been solved? I'm letting you do this thing tonight because Jean said I could trust your judgment. Tell me right now, how much of a mistake am I making?"

Natasha could practically feel Peter's frustration and embarrassment. "Tony, I agree with you about the mission," she said, "but you have to admit that Peter isn't exactly defenseless."

He turned his glare on her. "Could you at least _attempt_ to stay out of other people's business?"

" _Enough_ ," Jean announced, and came to her feet. "My final words on the subject are these: Peter — no. Natasha and Kel — no, not by yourselves. Vision will go with you; the survey will wait. Anything else?"

There was a brief pause, followed by a collective intake of breath.

Each person managed approximately one syllable before Jean cut them all off with an emphatic, " _Excellent_. So glad we agree. Please close the door on your way out."

They shuffled out of the office and out the back door of the admin building, in varying states of distemper.

Kel asked, "Spider-Man, do you still want to go for a run?"

"Yeah, I guess," Peter said. "At least _you_ don't think I'm useless."

She looked up at the clouds rolling in from the east, and sniffed the air. "It will rain tonight."

"Oh. Does that mean we're postponing?"

"No. It means we'll get wet."

"Shouldn't you have a weapon?" Tony asked her.

"I'll get my sword now," Kel said. "We'll be fine, Tony. I know how to do this. We'll be back by tomorrow morning."

"Right. Fine. Just… be careful," he said to their retreating backs.

The camp wasn't all that large a space, but over the last few days, Tony had done an impressive job of managing to be wherever the rest of the Avengers were _not_. Even when he'd been paying daily visits to Steve, he'd managed to slip in and out of the medical ward like a ghost.

Now, Natasha could see him weighing his various exit strategies, all of which suffered from the same fundamental flaw: whichever way he chose to go, she could easily follow. Finally he settled on planting himself squarely and facing her down.

"Something on your mind?" he asked.

It would be so easy to turn this into a fight. Tony was clearly spoiling for one: his body was wired with anger so tightly, Natasha could practically hear the hum.

But she was just _so tired_ of the conflict.

This group of people — this team — had been so close to becoming something special. It should never have worked, so many disparate backgrounds and personalities and skills (and damages and fears), but in those few shining moments when it _had_ … Nick Fury had seen it, way back when: the potential, if they could have all combined into something greater than the sum.

Natasha had seen it too, and wanted it like she'd rarely allowed herself to want anything. She'd been as desperate to hold them together as Tony had, while the Accords debacle had unfolded. It had gutted her to watch Steve take a battering-ram approach to a moment of fragile diplomacy, and then to watch Tony desperately try to control the ensuing skid. Tony on one side, clinging with bloody fingernails to the idea that if he could only make Steve _stop_ then things might still work out, and Steve on the other, discovering that he had no limits whatsoever when Barnes was on the line.

They'd all made their choices; they'd all hurt each other, and been hurt. But Natasha still had to believe that they could all find their way back.

"I don't want to argue," she said, with terrible, ungainly honesty. "Can we try to have a conversation that doesn't turn into a fight?"

"Doubt it."

She knew what he was doing. He would obstruct and he would snipe, and the instant she retaliated, it would be a full-scale verbal war, which he would then convince himself had been inevitable, which would make him twice as defensive the next time.

"I saw Rhodes before we left," Natasha offered. "Pepper, too."

"Oh great, you've got them harboring and aiding now."

She ignored that. "They both looked good. Worried about you, of course."

"Thanks for the update," Tony said. "There. Civility achieved. Are we done yet?"

"Tony…"

"Yeah. We're done." He turned on his heel and strode off, not toward the relative safety of the dining area and the rest of the camp population, but north toward the mine.

Natasha followed. "Tony, you can't just ignore us for the next ten months."

"Watch me."

He accelerated his pace, and Natasha followed suit. "We have enough enemies on this planet already. We can't afford to be fighting each other."

"Again — watch me."

_Damn him_. "I didn't switch sides," Natasha said.

That finally brought him to a halt.

"Steve was going to keep pushing until someone got killed," she said, walking around to face him. "I did what I thought was necessary to protect everyone, just like you did."

"Sure," he snarled. "Rhodey only broke his back, he didn't actually _die_. I guess that doesn't count."

She closed her eyes. "That was an accident, Tony. It should never have happened, and I'm sorry that it did, but it was an accident. You couldn't have stopped it. None of us could."

Tony scoffed and turned away again.

"You also couldn't have stopped Ross from locking up any of us that he could get his hands on," Natasha said. "That was always his endgame. And he's just waiting for an excuse to do it to you, too."

"No shit." Tony leaned his head forward and rubbed his eyes. "I was going to… I mean, forgive me for taking five seconds to focus on my newly paraplegic best friend, but once things had settled down a bit, I was going to work on getting them out. Legally. But no, Rogers jumped in and took care of that, and now, if any of them show up someplace Ross has eyes and ears, they're going to be met with a hail of bullets, at best. Also known as the exact scenario I was trying to prevent."

"I know." She risked stepping in a little closer. "We need each other, Tony. Not just to survive this place. We need each other if we're ever going to fix things back home."

He slowly pivoted back. In the dimming light of the late evening, Natasha could see something like wistfulness in his eyes. He knew she was right; he wanted the team back, too.

But then the moment slipped away.

"I've been thinking about the first time I met you," Tony said. "Do you remember that? I had donuts and a hangover, you had a jet injector. It was a magical moment."

"Tony…"

"What's funny is, I'd already met the person I _thought_ you were about two weeks prior under completely different circumstances. _Wild_ , right?"

Natasha could see clearly every turn in the downward spiral that lay before them. "I thought we were past this," she said, knowing that it would make no difference.

"You infiltrated my company, my home, my _life_ , and I'm supposed to be past it?"

No difference whatsoever — and maybe Tony wasn't the only one who was angry. "I had a job to do," she retorted.

"To spy and manipulate."

"To save your life!"

" _No_. You did those things, _and_ you saved my life. _And_. Not _in order to_. It didn't have to be done the way you did it."

"You were in possession of one of the most powerful weapons on the planet, and you were having a public meltdown. Of course Nick had to—"

"I don't give a shit what Nick Fury did or did not think he had to do," Tony snapped. "But, you know what? I did move past it. You were on the team, we worked together, it was fine. And for a second there — _just_ for a second — I even started to think that you had my back. But we both know how that one turned out. So you tell me, Ms. Rushman: why should I ever waste my time on trusting you again?"

She would never let him see how deeply that had cut her.

"That's what I thought," Tony said, and turned back the way he'd come.

And nearly jumped a foot in the air when Kel said, "You _really_ all talk a lot."

It was only thanks to a lifetime of training that Natasha didn't startle. The camp was a more secure environment than the forest had been, but that was no excuse: she'd gotten distracted, and Kel had taken her completely by surprise.

Kel stepped out from around the corner of the admin building, looking very pleased with herself. "I got you this time," she said to Natasha.

Tony had his hand pressed to his chest. " _Please_ don't tell me that Peter—"

"No, he's too far away to hear," Kel said. "I told him I forgot something." When neither of them stopped staring at her, she added, "Oh, I have no idea what the answer is. I don't even understand the problem, really. I'm just interested." She folded her arms and stood waiting for the next installment.

Tony glared first at her, then at Natasha, and finally at the open sky. When none of these seemed to offer any satisfaction, he heaved a sigh and said to the air in Natasha's general vicinity, "It's… possible, just now, that I was being more of a jackass than was, strictly speaking, necessary."

Natasha noted the absence of an apology in that statement, but… baby steps. "When I let Steve go, I knew it was going to hurt you," she said. "I'm sorry."

Some more glowering and jaw-clenching eventually produced, "You didn't do it to screw me over specifically. However much it might have looked that way."

"Truce?" she suggested.

Tony gave a quick nod. "Truce." Then, after a certain amount of nervous fidgeting, he added, "It might turn out — and believe me, this is agony even to contemplate, but possibly, at some far distant future date and under carefully controlled conditions, I might need to… talk about certain things. Some more. Maybe." He glanced at her, looked away, cleared his throat. "And, I mean, if you… I'm not assuming that everything on your end is automatically…"

Three weeks ago — or, from Tony's point of view, ten months ago — Natasha would not have thought him capable of articulating a request like that. "Of course we can talk, Tony," she said. "It's a good idea. In the future, under controlled conditions."

"Good. Okay." He turned to leave, but then paused. "Natasha. You're not a waste of time. That was out of line. Sorry. And _you_ ," he added to Kel, "would you please go supervise the person you're _supposed_ to be supervising?"

"I know where he is," Kel said placidly. "I can supervise more than one at the same time."

Tony harrumphed at her — clearly faking far more irritation than he actually felt — and headed back toward the barracks.

Once he was out of sight, Natasha turned to Kel and arched her eyebrows in a silent query.

"j'Brenithi can all sense each other," Kel said. "A fight between two people in a group, if it goes on too long…" Her finger traced a series of ricochets in the air. "I think maybe it's not so different for you."

"Not so different," Natasha agreed. "Unfortunately, this fight is between a lot more than two people, and it's already been going on for too long."

"Yes. I see this better now."

And there were things that Natasha could see better now, like the fact that Kel's mere presence had been enough to bring Tony back down out of attack mode. She wondered what Kel had done to earn that level of trust. (Although she was even more curious about what kind of trip Jean and Kel were planning where the two of them would have to be enough. So many mysteries to unravel.)

"Where are you taking Peter?" she asked, since that question was likely to have a simple answer.

Kel pointed southeast. "Straight out, straight in. Back before the work shift starts tomorrow." She gave a mischievous sort of smile. "Jean didn't say it exactly, but I think she wants him to see something scary. So we'll see what we find."

 

* * *

 

It did rain overnight, and the drizzle continued through the morning. Before breakfast was served, the kitchen detail stretched a translucent, flexible film across posts set up around the outdoor dining site. They painted the edges with some kind of sharp-scented chemical, and the film slowly ballooned up into an arching canopy. Natasha had to admit that some of the local organic technology was rather clever.

Most people finished their meal and left, but Tony planted himself at a table and was clearly planning to stay put until Kel returned with Peter. In the spirit of their fragile truce, Natasha got a second cup of the hot drink that passed for coffee and took a seat at the opposite end of the bench.

Kel and Peter appeared from the southeast not too long after, and Natasha sat blinking in bemusement as they crossed the field and approached the table. Peter was _drenched_ in mud. He was quite possibly more mud than boy.

He squelched to a halt and announced, "Ms. Romanoff, I think that Vision is a _really_ good choice to be in the raiding party with you. And, Mr. Stark, you were right. I didn't know what a job like that was going to be like. I'm sorry for getting so angry."

"Don't worry about it," Tony said quickly. "Are you all right?"

"Uh-huh," he said, as globs of mud slid down his clothing to collect at his feet. "I'm fine. I don't really want to talk about it. I'm just gonna go get changed, and I'll see you at work later. Okay?"

"Sure." Tony stared after him as he walked off, then turned to Kel.

It was perhaps worth noting that Kel, while somewhat disheveled, was _not_ drenched in mud. What she had instead were quite a lot of bloodstains on her clothing. Natasha hoped that Tony mistook them for dirt.

"I like him," Kel said. "We had fun."

"What the hell happened out there?" Tony asked.

"We went for a run."

"I went for a run with you once. I didn't come back looking like _that_."

"No, but you felt better, right? So does he. So it was the same."

Once she was gone, Tony muttered, "That woman is terrifying."

Natasha had to agree.

 


	22. Chapter 22

A five-day walk through the forest with Kel would have been an entertaining challenge. A five-day walk through the forest with Kel and Vision was far more sedate. They encountered the usual range of predators bearing stingers and claws, but Vision was impervious to all of them. Although he preferred not to use lethal force himself, he could easily stun or redirect any given attacker, or at worst immobilize it so that Kel or Natasha could make a clean kill.

Mostly to find out how Kel would respond, Natasha pointed out that Vision could easily pick the both of them up and fly them to their destination in considerably less than five days.

Kel's nose wrinkled. "I prefer not to," she said. "There are things on the ground that I need to track, and I want to collect some plants and animal pieces as we go. If I can do this now, it saves time and risk later."

So they walked. Kel made her side trips, returning with plant samples (some poisonous, some defensive like the blue scent-altering ivy, some medicinal) and sometimes a venom sac or other internal structure that she'd hacked out of the wildlife. She wrapped each specimen in mesh sheets and loaded it into a canvas rucksack that, after the second day, Vision carried. When Natasha evinced an interest in her activities, Kel started a running narration of useful species to watch for and how to harvest them. It was apparent that she knew this territory very, very well.

That wasn't to say that the entire trip was uneventful. Early on the fifth morning, Natasha woke up to find Kel buckling on her hook.

"We have to climb," she said. "Get at least four times your height off the ground. Supplies also. Right now."

"Why?" Natasha asked, even as she packed up her bedroll.

Vision said, "I believe it has to do with the swarm of arthropods currently approaching from the south."

"Yes," Kel said. "If an 'arthropod' is a thing that crawls. If one stings you, the only good thing about your death will be that it is fast."

Kel was apparently ready to scale the nearest tree trunk with a hook and a knife. Fortunately, there was a faster way.

Vision extended his arm, and Natasha allowed him to grasp her about the waist. Then he turned to Kel.

"If I may?"

She eyed the both of them dubiously. "If you may what?"

"Vision can fly, remember?" Natasha said.

"Ah." Her mouth twisted up like this was an affront to her dignity, but she joined them on Vision's other side.

They rose about twenty-five feet into the air. Vision transferred each of them to a convenient tree branch, and made a second trip to collect their gear.

"All right, we climbed," Natasha said. "What kind of swarm are we dealing with?"

"We did _not_ climb," Kel said with some asperity. "We did something else. And the swarm is of _mershshket_ — at least, that's the animal from j'Brenn that they look like to me. Similar enough. Most months, they are calm. Not so difficult to harvest small numbers. But at certain times, they all move in a group to a new nest, and while they travel, they will kill anything on the ground that gets in the way."

"Why do you harvest them?"

"You already saw," Kel said. "It's how I made the poison that killed the Mjentur in the mine. It's useful that I know that the colony moved north. We will need much more of the poison later." She looked over her shoulder. "Here they come."

And there they came.

It was a swarm, all right. Where Kel's closest cultural equivalent was a _mershshket_ , Natasha's was an earwig — albeit one that was a foot long and a startling shade of orange. They came marching in a phalanx that was at least fifty feet across and very, very long.

Luckily, they seemed to have minimal interest in climbing. The closest members of the swarm sloshed a few feet up the trunk of the tree as they enveloped it, but otherwise they all devoted themselves to moving forward.

It took the swarm about fifteen minutes to pass, and Kel had them wait another ten before declaring it clear.

"No," she said firmly when Vision offered his hand. "Once was enough." Then she jumped.

Natasha arched one eyebrow and watched with some interest as Kel hit the ground and rolled three times. She came up favoring her left leg, but it wore off after a few paces.

So her dignity was worth at least a sprained ankle.

Natasha, on the other hand, tried not to sprain her ankle except for mission-critical reasons. She and all of their gear descended via Vision.

He handed Kel her pack. "Are you all right?" he asked.

"Of course."

"Then, may I ask, have I given you offense? You seem discomfited by my proximity."

"No," she said shortly. Then, "Yes. But it's your nature, not your actions."

Kel distanced herself from him under the guise of getting her bearings. "We should leave the road today," she said. "We can walk until the middle of the afternoon, but no more. Any closer, and we will be within the range that is covered by patrols from the garrison. We will need to stop and make plans then. The rest of the trip must be done much more carefully."

The morning's hike proceeded as usual, albeit more slowly without the benefit of the dirt road. Kel continued to brief them on the garrison's defenses along the way. It was surrounded by the usual barrier of fine but deadly filaments. Mjentur teams patrolled the local forest by day, and walked the perimeter by night. The grounds were also home to various botanical detection systems.

"The research outpost was small," Kel said. "Not much of value kept there. The garrison is much bigger and has many more defenses. It will be harder to get in, and harder to steal what we need."

"Who are they guarding against?" Natasha asked.

"In part, it's in case of trouble from the prisoners," Kel replied. "In part against other mercenary groups. Not impossible that someone who was hired to do a different job decides they can make more profit if they steal the vibranium."

"We're after agricultural supplies, not precious metals," Natasha said. "Security should be a little lighter where we need to go, shouldn't it?"

"Probably, but I wasn't in this part of the camp very much when I was there the first time. Have to see when we get there."

Kel called a halt around midafternoon, and declared that they shouldn't proceed until after dark.

"Border patrols sometimes come out this far," she said, "and they know how to look for intruders. When we go further, we must move without tracks." She looked down at Vision's feet, which were hovering about three inches off the ground, and gave a sigh. "Which means very different things to some of us."

"Is this sufficient?" he asked.

"Yes," she said, with the scowl of someone who'd trained all her life to do something that he could do effortlessly. "In fact, you shouldn't come closer to the garrison than this. The guards carry _rrzhtik-che_ , and there are also traps with it inside the camp."

"And you believe that this substance could damage me?"

"Yes, I do," Kel said. "If you're made of vibranium, then it will make you shatter. The Nyth sell vibranium weapons. They don't leave themselves vulnerable to it."

Back on Earth, Vision could have evaded any such attack simply by phasing through it. Here, though, that particular ability of his seemed to have been lost. Natasha had originally hoped that he just needed time to adjust to this universe and whatever ways it was different from back home, but it was looking more and more like his condition was permanent. (It was the first entry, but far from the only one, on Natasha's private list of things that worried her and couldn't be changed.)

"I agree with Kel," she said to him. "The two of us can handle the rest of the mission on our own. We'll meet you back here in a day or so."

"As you prefer."

Kel took a seat on a tree root and started running a whetstone along the edge of one of her knives, a favorite rest-break pastime of hers. Natasha took a drink from her canteen, and went for an exploratory stroll around their immediate vicinity. Something had given Kel the cue to stop here, and she wanted to know what it was. This particular patch of land looked like a completely generic section of the forest. There were no rock formations or other obvious features to use as a reference point. It had to have been something else.

Not too far away, she noticed a shrub, about waist-height, with narrow leaves and small clusters of red-veined buds. It was quite innocuous-looking, except that Natasha didn't remember seeing that particular species before.

"That plant there," she said, and pointed. "Is it anything special?"

Kel looked first at the shrub, then at Natasha, and her expression was openly impressed. In response, she walked over to the shrub and sliced off one of the bulb-bearing stems with a quick flick of her knife.

She brought her prize back to Natasha. "There will be many more of these as we go," she said. "They look like separate plants, but the entire group is connected under the ground. If you brush one of these pieces, it shoots out a small needle and takes some blood. Small enough that maybe you don't even notice that it happened. Inside, there are different chemical reactions for animals from this planet or ones from through the portal. If it detects an intruder, it sends a warning through the root system back to the garrison."

Natasha took the stem and examined the bulbs. Close up, she could see that they were covered in little indentations — like strawberry seeds, only smaller and more sparse — where the needles were presumably concealed. "Cute," she said.

Now that she knew what she was looking for, she could see more of the distant early warning shrubbery scattered amongst the rest of the ground cover up ahead. Avoiding it was going to slow them down even more.

However, that problem could wait for a few hours. Kel and Natasha settled in to rest until nightfall. Vision didn't need the rest, of course, but out of politeness, he sat down nearby.

Since the incident that morning, Vision had been giving Kel a respectful berth, while Kel had, with isolated exceptions, been acting like he didn't exist. Now she glanced at him, then quickly looked away. Natasha could feel her gearing up to ask a question.

When her curiosity reached critical mass, she shifted to face him and asked, "Do you kill?"

Luckily, Vision wasn't put off by bluntness. "With great reluctance, I once ended the life of a being who had both the capability and all-consuming desire to destroy humankind," he said. "While I accepted the necessity of this action, I also found it deeply regrettable." He considered her for a moment, then asked, "Do you kill?"

"Yes," Kel said. "Often, and very well."

"And have you never found it to be regrettable?"

It turned out that Kel also had a high tolerance for bluntness. "I don't know," she said. "To most j'Brenithi, I think the question wouldn't make sense. For us, a child becomes an adult the day she receives her name, and the next day, she is sent to war. I fought in many campaigns, against many armies. Taught to kill the enemy from the day I could pick up a weapon. It's what we're meant to do."

"Who are you at war with?" Natasha asked.

"Anyone, really," Kel said. "There is a reason that we do business with races like the Nyth. They sell weapons and don't care about the damage. We like to do a lot of damage. We expand, we conquer. Take things we need. There is always another border to be extended, or a rebellion to be punished. With every victory, we prove that we have the right."

A slight twist to her mouth suggested that she wasn't fully buying the party line.

"What happened to change your mind?"

"A bad night." Someone who wasn't paying attention might have mistaken her bitter grimace for a smile. "In fact, it was a great victory for us," she said. "Something that I helped to make possible. My name was spoken widely. It was… I don't think your language has a phrase for it: the triumph and also sadness to know that no success you will ever have can be as great as this one. Many of those who spoke of it believed it was this moment for me. But… I couldn't feel the triumph. Just the cost. And not only to…"

She broke off with a quick shake of her head, and Natasha understood that she would not be elaborating further.

"After, I began to think that there were better reasons for my name to be spoken," Kel said. "I wanted to know what it means that parts of me are human. So I found a way to travel to Earth, to see if it would be different." She gave a faint sigh. "Instead, I guess there will be another war. At least it's something I know how to do."

"You have risked a great deal on behalf of strangers," Vision said. "If I understand your culture's customs correctly, I believe that many will speak your name in gratitude."

Amusingly, Kel looked a bit flushed. "Well, we still have to win." She chuckled softly, then looked Vision in the eyes for the first time since that morning. "You are… difficult for me," she said to him. "Clearly you're alive: you act, you speak. But I can sense almost nothing from you, and what there is, I don't understand."

"What do you perceive of me?" Vision asked.

"Small pieces only. Very faint, like shadows." She studied him with narrowed eyes. "What I can see makes sense as part of a human body, or similar type: muscles, organs, bones. But whatever power keeps you alive, it's completely different from anything I ever felt before. I couldn't use it, or even touch it." She sat back again, and resumed her fine-tuning of her knife. "You don't need to eat, I think. Or breathe. You're very strong, and armored enough that no blade I have could damage you. If you chose to kill me, I don't know if I could stop you. All of this annoys. Also," she said after a moment's reflection, "I _don't_ like to fly. If I must be over the ground, it shouldn't be because someone put me there."

Vision smiled faintly. "In the future," he said, "I will not put you there unless your life is in immediate peril. Is that acceptable?"

Kel made a show of weighing her options before declaring, "Yes, it is acceptable."

Oh, if only all team interpersonal conflicts could be resolved so straightforwardly.

She finally finished fussing with the knife and replaced it in the sheath on her hip. "I ask about these things also because in five months, we will have to come back and destroy the garrison," she said. "Jean is very clear that I can't use any of humans who didn't choose to come, even though there are I think two who could do it. So there is only your group." This time, when she faced Vision, she was all business. "The power you carry would make this job easier."

Vision folded his hands and looked down somberly. "My objective is to protect those people who were brought here against their will," he said. "If we are attacked, I will do what is required to defend their lives." He paused, and continued carefully, "I understand how you arrived at this preemptive strike. It may in fact be only way to gain enough time to guarantee our survival. If so—"

"Then I still won't ask you," Kel cut in. "I prefer not to add to the regrets of others, if I can help it. It's all right. I just needed to know." She turned to Natasha and tilted her head quizzically.

Natasha could have saved her the trouble. She'd made these calculations back at that first strategy meeting. "Assuming Clint's mobile by then, he and I will volunteer," she said.

"Good," said Kel. "With Jean and me, this makes four. I prefer at least five."

Jean's inclusion was something of a surprise — she was clearly no soldier. Natasha had to wonder what kind of regrets she would take away from an op like this. But that was between her and Kel.

"Not Wanda," Natasha said. "Not Tony."

"No."

"Steve or Sam can probably handle it. That is, if Steve is combat-ready by then."

"No medical reason he won't be," Kel said. "But at the same time, or close to it, we also have to destroy the research outpost. I think he might prefer this job."

"He might, at that."

"Sam, then," she said, and gave a quick nod. "This gives five. It might be enough. But of course this is a problem for much later."

Steve's condition was the third entry on Natasha's worry list (the second, of course, being Clint's leg). She didn't harbor any illusions that a spot of vengeance would be enough to balance the scales, either.

Steve had never truly established a life in this century. Duties, responsibilities, yes — but not a life. Captain America had made the transition; Steve Rogers had been left behind. It was something that Natasha had been troubled by for quite some time.

Then, in the space of just a few days, Steve had lost Peggy Carter, found and then lost Barnes, shattered the Avengers, and been exiled from his home. He might have reasonably believed that everything that could have been taken from him was gone… only to come to this place and discover that he'd had one more thing to lose.

He was going to have to figure out what was left, and as much as she might wish otherwise, Natasha knew she couldn't help him to do it.

Kel, like the dutiful soldier that she was, had refocused on their upcoming mission. "The first problem we will have tonight is to get through the barrier lines," she said. "It will not be easy to do this quietly."

"I might have an idea about that," Natasha replied. "Tell me everything you know about how they work."

 

* * *

 

Creeping through the woods after nightfall, turning no stone and bending no branch, alert at all times for enemy patrols, detection systems and predator attacks — that was relatively routine. Natasha and Kel took several hours to reach their destination, and they spent another hour moving slowly around the perimeter, observing the facility's layout and its security measures.

Their reconnaissance took them to the edge of the sea. The treeline ended only a few yards before the water began, and the coast was a drab, inhospitable stretch of gravel and rocks. A large wooden dock, suitable for cargo ships, extended into the water. Although there were no vessels currently at port, the dock was well lit and patrolled. Kel had described some underwater defenses and detection mechanisms that were even nastier than the barrier. The water wasn't going to be their back door in this time.

Close to the dock was the first building Natasha had seen in this place that wasn't constructed from wood. It was block-rectangular like all the local architecture, and made of large cinder blocks. Armed guards were stationed at the vault-like door, and luminescent vines lit up the surrounding area. This had to be where the vibranium was stored.

Further inland, the security tapered off a little. Natasha provisionally identified barracks, a mess hall, some sort of administration building, and possibly an armory. Beyond those buildings came fields sown with different grains — their primary target — and a barn-like structure bordering a fenced pasture. The western road, which led back to the camp, passed between the pasture and the fields.

The barrier of filaments encircled the entire facility, terminating at the water's edge on both sides of the dock. It hung from forty-foot-tall wooden posts that stood roughly five yards from the treeline. It was patrolled, and unlike the lackadaisical pairs who had walked the perimeter in the prison camp, these guards walked with the practiced alertness of soldiers whose superiors liked to stage unannounced drills.

But it was a very long perimeter. The entire facility was about a mile square, and while some of it was bounded by the sea, that still left over three miles of fence to patrol. Particularly out by the fields, which didn't present a tactically significant target, the cleared region around the barrier hadn't been well maintained. The undergrowth was overgrown. In the dark, if a person wore adequate camouflage, carried minimal gear, and was on the petite side, she could crawl undercover from one side of the barrier line to the other.

That only left the barrier itself. They'd seen before that the strands were relatively easy to retract, but doing so made a noise that would alert the nearest sentries. They needed an alternative.

Back on Earth, Natasha had packed supplies on the "everything but the kitchen sink" principle, which meant that she was equipped to test out a theory. As Kel had confirmed earlier that evening, the filaments targeted heat and movement. Controlled movement was simply a matter of discipline, and for their body heat? Ice packs.

Now the two of them were crouched behind a tree, preparing to make their incursion. Before them were the forest's attempts to reclaim the cleared space: bushes, saplings, and long grasses created knee-high ground cover. On the other side of the barrier was a grain field bordered by a shallow ditch.

A stretch of patient observation established that a pair of guards passed by every five minutes.

"I'll go first," Kel whispered. "If it fails, I might survive."

Natasha activated half of their supply of ice packs — they weren't getting back out this way — and helped Kel to tape them down across her neck, back and legs. Between the cold and her clothing, which was well insulated, hopefully she would become invisible to the fence.

They waited a few minutes for the cold to sink in. Kel's skin broke out in goosebumps, and Natasha found it oddly comforting to see such a human reaction. Then Kel began her crawl.

She lay face down so her breath wouldn't touch the filaments, and began to inch forward, slowly, slowly, through the underbrush toward the barrier. It was going to take a lot longer than five minutes to cross the space, but she could sense where the patrols were, and would know to go still when one was in sight.

Kel moved like a ghost. Once she was beneath cover, only the faintest shiver of movement from the foliage gave away her position. The next pair of sentries came into view, and even that slight tell vanished until they had passed by. Then it resumed, inching its way up to the barrier. Another patrol, another pause. A little more progress.

The filaments were as good as invisible in the darkness. There would be no warning, only an explosion of blood.

But there were no explosions. Just the faintest of rustling sounds and a tiny wave in the grass. The next time a pair of sentries came by, she had to have been directly beneath the barrier… but the filaments paid her no mind, nor did the enemy guards see or hear anything suspicious.

It took Kel fully twenty minutes to crawl twenty feet. Once the fourth pair of sentries had passed, a grey shadow detached itself from the undergrowth and slipped across the grass into the ditch.

That was her cue. Natasha activated the remaining ice packs and taped them down. The chill sank in as her body temperature began to drop. When it began to take some force of will not to shiver, she dropped onto her stomach, arms tucked beneath her, ice resting all down her back, and very, very slowly began to creep forward.

There was no hum of electricity or other signal to warn her of the danger. If this failed, she wouldn't know about it until she was in pieces.

Tiny movements, tiny movements. Accepting the cold into herself; suppressing the instinct to shiver. Crawling at a snail's pace. She kept her breathing shallow, and her eyes fixed on the ground before her face.

She might not have been able to empathically sense the progression of the sentries, but she could hear their footsteps well enough. She let their interruptions help mark her progress: by the time the fourth set passed, she expected to be clear.

The second pair went by. One of the barrier posts was within Natasha's peripheral vision; she wasn't quite beneath it yet, but certainly within its range.

In front of her, Kel snapped her fingers, and Natasha (as it were) froze.

The problem soon became clear. The guards that had passed her by now turned around and were on their way back. She didn't know what could have alerted them. She'd been perfectly silent. Maybe her presence was causing the barrier's filaments to react in some way that, while not fatal, still registered as unusual. And, unfortunately, if Natasha made any kind of move at all, whether it be to retreat or to defend herself, she'd be torn to pieces.

Awkward.

Not unforeseeable, however. Natasha held position and waited, and very soon she heard a scratching from somewhere up ahead of her, made by something much smaller than a person.

On the previous mission, Kel had fed the barrier a six-legged mammal about the size of a raccoon. The sacrifice she'd brought this time was by necessity smaller, since she'd had to keep it unconscious and stashed inside her jacket. Per the contingency plan, she'd revived it and set it loose from further up the ditch, where it was now making a break for freedom.

Natasha heard one of the guards grumble something, just before there was a sharp twang and the rat ended in a nasty splash. A little piece of something landed on the back of Natasha's head.

The explosion happened on the opposite side of the post that she was currently crawling past, and happily, it seemed to adequately explain whatever anomaly had been observed. The guards' footsteps receded again.

Natasha finished her painstaking crawl, and when the coast was clear, she joined Kel in the ditch. The hard part was over — at least until they had to get back out.

It was considerably easier to move about the grounds. Since no farming happened at night, this section of the garrison was all but deserted. A wood building stood adjacent to the fields, and was as good a place as any to start exploring. Its lock yielded to Natasha's lockpicks within seconds.

Inside, they found one of the primary mission objectives: seeds. Four different species of grain were stored in bins, and they helped themselves to a few scoops of each type. The fertilizer was stored somewhere else, apparently, although Natasha guessed that farming supplies had to be close by.

Their plan now was to spend the rest of the night doing basic reconnaissance of the low-security areas of the compound. They had to locate the rest of the supplies they needed, and they had to identify a place to lie low during the day while they worked out their escape route.

The next closest structure was the large building that stood adjacent to the fenced-in pasture.

"We get in," Kel whispered, "then off the ground right away."

When the coast was clear, Natasha unbolted the door, and the two of them slipped inside. The building was, unsurprisingly, a barn: it contained long rows of stalls for livestock, and storage containers for hay and other kinds of feed. The smell, although certainly _rural_ , wasn't as overwhelming as Natasha had expected; knowing this planet, there was probably a plant for that.

These observations registered as she hopped up onto the side of the nearest stall and shinnied up a wooden post to reach the rafters. Kel was right on her heels.

It didn't take long to learn the reason they'd had to get off the ground. From every direction at once, there came slithering… snakes made of vines? Vines made of snakes? They had no eyes or mouths from what Natasha could see, and most of them bore leaves, but they were definitely moving under their own power. They swept across the barn floor in overlapping waves. When no intruders were detected, they retreated again, apparently back into the walls.

"For the larger buildings," Kel whispered, "at night when they should be empty. A poison, and of course an alarm. If we stay up here and are quiet, should be fine."

Natasha nodded.

Even if the ground was off limits, this place had considerable potential for concealment. And it also had something else.

Her vantage point gave her an excellent view of the animal whose stall she'd climbed. Natasha liked to think that very little could surprise her, but she had to take a moment to stop and simply stare.

"Is that a horse?" she whispered to Kel.

"I don't know," Kel replied. "What's a horse?"

"That's a horse," Natasha decided. "I love it. Let's steal some."

 

* * *

 

Sam could say truthfully and without false bravado that he was highly skilled in a variety of forms of combat. Even without his wings, he could handle himself in a firefight, and if guns weren't on the menu, he'd stack himself up against pretty much any nonenhanced human in close-quarters. All of which meant that he had a very clear idea of just how out of his depth he was when it came to the weapons of choice in this place: swords and spears. The ridiculous stick with a knife tied to it that he'd been carrying around in the forest had made him feel like a little kid playing pretend. It was a gap in his education that he needed to fix, and fast.

The morning after the raiding party had left, Sam had joined Jean on her morning run, and afterward he'd asked her if she would teach him how to use a spear — a real one. She'd agreed, and procured for him a copy of the one she'd used during the camp takeover, and since then they'd trained together daily.

This weapon was emphatically not a toy. The wood was a deep shade of red, and surprisingly heavy. The double-edged blade that topped the staff had been honed to a razor-sharp edge. Jean handled hers with the sort of casual proficiency that had to have come from years of training. Sam felt ungainly by comparison, but she was a good teacher and he was improving.

The training sessions doubled as opportunities for Sam to try and get to know Jean a little better… _try_ being the operative word.

"So you're not going to tell me where you're from," Sam said, and swung a lateral cut through the air at half-speed.

"I did," Jean replied. She met his blade with hers, deflected it, and countered with a straight thrust. "Earth."

Sam stepped right and parried — this was a rehearsed sequence of moves that they would repeat at increasing speeds — and slashed again. "And you're not going to tell me your last name."

"You would find it disappointingly generic."

Slice-stab-clash-clash-duck, loose but controlled. Jean's spearpoint glided through the air just above his head.

"No, it's cool," he said. "You've got the whole air of mystery working for you. I get it. But it's not going to be that simple once we get back to Earth."

"Run that last piece again," Jean said as they reset their positions. "Remember to keep your shoulders relaxed."

Sam shifted his spear from one hand to the other and shook his arms out. "Seriously, though. The return trip is going to be a very public event — you know that, right?"

Slice-stab-clash— except Jean broke from the script, and a moment later Sam found himself flat on his back with a blade pointed at his throat. Which was the usual thing that happened when he screwed up.

"I do know that," Jean said, and gave him a hand up again. "Whatever media or other official attention might be attracted by our return, I have every intention of sitting it out."

She corrected his form — the feet like _this_ , the shoulders like _that_ , until the move wasn't leaving him vulnerable to an easy counterattack anymore — and they ran through the steps again.

"Yeah, we might have heard something about this from your team back on Earth," Sam said. "There was a plan, a backup plan, and a second backup plan. Your buddy Peter wasn't a fan of either of the backup plans."

Jean gave a faint smile. "Assuming I'm interpreting Peter's nomenclature correctly… yes, that's accurate." When they reset this time, she signalled for an increase in tempo. "And it occurs to me that your team might also be interested in the ability to slip out quietly."

The match wasn't full-out yet, but they were using enough power that every clash sang through Sam's arms from wrist to shoulder. The conversation lapsed as he focused all of his attention on keeping up. To the untrained eye, it might have looked like a real fight, although Sam certainly knew better. He came to the end of the routine without having made any fatal mistakes, then both of them relaxed their guard.

"That would sure as hell beat the alternative," Sam admitted, "considering the alternative is life in a secret prison. What's your plan?"

This time, her smile had an apologetic tinge to it. "Unfortunately, some of the details aren't mine to give," she said. "I have to speak with Kel before I can tell you, essentially, whether I can offer you the plan or the backup plan. I apologize for being so cryptic, but—"

"—but you don't tell each other's secrets," Sam concluded.

"You've heard our policy."

"Yeah, it came up." Sam knew he had no chance of cajoling her into breaking a confidence, although he was incredibly curious as to what secret Kel could still be hiding. "I guess the problem isn't exactly time-critical. As long as there actually is a plan or two in the works?"

"There is."

"Fair enough." Sam swung his spear back into guard position. "Go again?"

They went again. The weapon felt strong in his hands — a lot more so than it had when he'd started — but he wasn't kidding himself that he was anywhere near combat-ready yet. Jean typically concluded their lessons with an unchoreographed sparring match, and it was only thanks to her extreme politeness that each one didn't end with Sam in several pieces. Another piece of information that he hadn't been able to pry out of her yet was how she'd come by this particular set of skills.

The sparring area was an empty patch of grass out behind the camp's greenhouse. The next time Jean called for a break, Sam discovered that Spider-Man was standing next to the structure, watching them with a bit of a smirk.

"That's a really nice stick you've got," he said to Sam.

Seriously, this kid. "I hear Kel took you out for a jog and dumped you in a lake," Sam countered "How'd that work out for you?"

"That's not what happened!"

"Then what did happen?"

"I don't want to talk about it!"

"Gentlemen," Jean interjected. "Peter, is there something you need?"

"Mr. Stark sent me to tell you that he and Alisha have worked out some new explosives formulas that they're going to start testing, so if you hear some things blowing up, it's almost definitely on purpose."

Jean pressed her lips together. "I see. Would you please remind Alisha and Mr. Stark that things do not blow up in my camp without my express permission, and any such plans need to—"

Whatever very reasonable explosives policy she'd been about to state was interrupted by a sudden _BANG_ from the direction of the vibranium processing plant.

"Um," Peter said. "Do you still want me to tell them?"

"No," Jean sighed, and cast her eyes heavenward as if seeking strength from above. "I'll do it myself. Sam, if you'll forgive me?"

"Go ahead," he said. "I'll catch you tomorrow, assuming we're all still in one piece by then."

"Thank you. And can I also prevail upon you to take my spear?"

"Yeah, sure."

She handed the weapon to him as he turned to leave, and lifted the front hem of her shirt to mop the sweat from her face.

"Holy _shit_!" Peter yelped.

Sam spun back. "What happened?"

Jean closed her eyes for a moment and muttered, "Damn." Then she tugged her shirt down where it had ridden up her back, and turned to face Peter.

He was staring at Jean with almost comically wide eyes. "You've got… on your…" He made an up-and-down sort of gesture with one hand that did nothing to clear up the problem. "Do you know there's…?"

"Whip scars on my back?" Jean said. "Yes, I do know that, although I have a tendency to forget. I'm sorry, Peter. That was careless of me."

Sam was suddenly paying very, very close attention.

"It happened a long time ago," Jean added when Peter's freakout didn't abate. "More than twenty months now. The damage is entirely cosmetic."

Sam had made an effort to mingle with the rest of the population, first because he was going to be living with these folks for a while and it was only polite, and second to assess the physical and psychological toll that their captivity had taken. Aside from the brands (which were disappearing little by little, courtesy of Aaron, although Jean still had hers), he'd seen no evidence of chronic physical abuse, and neither had he heard any comparable stories.

"From the people I talked to," he said carefully, "I didn't get the impression that corporal punishment was a regular thing around here."

"No," Jean said, "it wasn't. In the early days, there was some debate within the camp administration as to how the rules were to be enforced. Kel managed to convince the rest that one severe disciplinary example would be just as effective as a reign of brutality, with the added benefits of extending the workers' useful lifespans and requiring less effort. I took steps to ensure that I would be the target." Her expression darkened briefly. "I can't claim to have been entirely successful at insulating the rest of the population from serious injury, but I do think that the conditions could have been far worse than they were."

Sam needed to sit with that piece of news awhile and untangle the implications. There were the beginnings of a pattern here… one where Jean tried to keep all the physical risks of a situation focused on herself, like she'd done when she'd killed the camp commander. Kel was the exact same way, and the two of them probably fed off each other in a way that could get dangerous fast.

But if nothing else, Jean sure as hell had guts.

"Not a lot of people would have been willing do something like that," he said.

"Not a lot of people would, or could, have played your role in averting the Helicarrier massacre," Jean replied, which was a nice sentiment but an imperfect parallel.

"Is that, uh…" Peter squirmed a bit. "Did it happened to Mr. Stark, too?"

"I think that's a question for him," Jean said gently. "Now let's go rein in these explosives tests." She gestured for Peter to lead the way. "Sam, we'll continue our prior conversation once Kel returns. But one way or another, I'll get your people back home safely. I promise."

 

* * *

 

The charmingly eye-catching horses had been led out of their stalls and into the pasture earlier that morning. The Mjentur on livestock duty had filled large trays with feed, and secured the pasture gates on their way out.

Kel and Natasha waited until the horses had finished their breakfast, then crept outside to join them. Kel, with some carefully targeted touches, got the herd more and more agitated until they were circling the pasture en masse. When they were on the verge of breaking into a gallop, Natasha unlatched the gate and showed them the way out. They took it.

A thought experiment: suppose a herd of valuable livestock is streaming toward a fence that destroys whatever touches it. Should the fence be left shut, likely leading to the loss of the entire herd? Or should it be opened, letting the herd escape into a dangerous wilderness, but allowing for the possibility that some of its members could be retrieved?

The guards stationed at the main road — who were probably going to catch hell for this regardless — did the math, and opened the barrier.

Amidst all the confusion generated by a herd of horses that had inexplicably broken out of their pasture and gone stampeding for freedom, no one noticed when the two infiltrators deactivated a section of the barrier behind the grain field and snuck out. They would still have to track down some of the herd before the Mjentur did — Kel's empathic sense would be helpful — then rendezvous with Vision without being detected, but Natasha was confident that the pair of them were up to the remaining tasks. They had seeds and fertilizer, and they'd added a bag of horse feed to their loot. And now, with a bit of luck, they were about to secure a much better means of transporting personnel and equipment between the camp and the beta site. All in all, not a bad day's work.

 


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I cross 150k words (oops?), I just want to say to everyone who's been willing to take a gamble on a WIP like this -- you're awesome. It might take us a while to get there, but I promise I know where we're going.

Tony was trying very hard to make sense of the animal that Natasha insisted on calling a horse. He was seeing some lizard in its scales and the shape of its head. He was seeing some Pegasus in its wings. But the most overt characteristic…

"It sparkles," he said. "It _sparkles_. Why."

"Oh, that's right, you've never seen them before," Maryam said. She walked past him and cheerfully patted the creature's neck.

Tony's eyebrows went up. "And you have?"

"Sure," she said. "The kitchen staff are the ones who unload all the supply deliveries. These guys pull the wagons."

The… horse tossed its head — an admittedly equine gesture that looked ridiculous on a lizard — and flicked its tongue at Maryam's hand. She giggled.

"Okay. Still waiting on a good reason for the scaly winged horse to look like a disco ball."

Kel hopped down from her perch behind the ridiculous creature's ridiculous wings. "Remember the little flying things I showed you?" she said. "The ones that light up? When the Nyth built their horses, they put some of those ones into the combination. Might have even started with them — I'm not sure."

"That's absurd!" Tony protested. "The biomechanical requirements for flight are completely different than for drawing a wagon or carrying a rider. Why the hell would they compromise the skeletal structure of their horses by sticking vestigial wings on them?"

Kel shrugged. "I don't know. They're pretty. Maybe it gets a better price."

"I hate this planet," Tony said. Nobody seemed to care.

The raiding party — or two thirds of it, at least — had arrived at the tail end of the lunch hour, and as such had attracted quite a bit of attention. A few of the crowd, like Maryam's husband Sadiq and the Oregon Kerrys, were making themselves useful by unloading some bulky-looking packages from the back of Natasha's horse. Many more had gathered just to gawk.

(It was interesting to watch how the abductees responded to Kel, and to the Avengers. From what Tony could tell, the fact that Kel had been working for Jean had been an open secret since before the Champaign portal. In the wake of the camp takeover, Tony hadn't noticed much in the way of fear or anger directed her way, but most people still maintained a cautious distance. Maryam and Sadiq — once Lily and Mr. Lily — were among the handful of exceptions who seemed at ease in her presence. The Avengers, by contrast, had been welcomed with open arms by pretty much everyone. Tony tried not to be openly bitter about it.)

Jean made her way to the front of the crowd. She also looked a bit flummoxed at the new arrivals. "I have… quite a few questions, but let's begin with: where are we going to keep them, and what do they eat?"

Once Natasha had handed over all of her packages, she dismounted. "We liberated a bag of the feed they were given back at the garrison," she said, "and while we were travelling, they seemed happy to snack on just about anything: grass, leaves, bark, small insects. Feeding them shouldn't be a problem."

"Yes, they are designed to be easy to maintain," Kel said.

Maryam was still delighted with her new friend. "How did you get them?" she asked.

"We infiltrated the garrison and made it look like some guards didn't latch the gate to their paddock correctly," Natasha said. "The entire herd bolted. It's a dangerous forest out there. Losses were inevitable."

"The Mjentur lost many more to predators than just the ones we stole," Kel added. "Those guards will be beaten quite badly for it. Though probably not killed."

That dampened the mood a little.

By way of changing the subject, Tony said, "Not to criticize, but isn't your team short a member?"

"Vision is about a day behind us," Natasha said. "We rode ahead on these two, and he's leading the rest."

Jean's eyes got a little wider. "And the rest comprise how many, exactly?"

"Another of these ones," Kel said, "and two of the bigger ones."

"The _bigger_ — all right. What will it take to keep them contained?"

"Have to keep them tied, I think, until we can build a fence," said Kel. "If we can find something to tie them with. I had rope, but I left it all on the side of the river."

"We've got more rope with our supplies," said Natasha. "I can rig some simple hitches. Where do you want them?"

"Back behind the greenhouse, at least to start with," Jean said. "We'll have to work out how much grazing space they need by observation."

Tony wondered who was going to find manure-shoveling added to their list of chores. It sure as hell wasn't going to be _him_.

Wilson, Barton and Maximoff finally showed up from wherever they'd been keeping themselves, which was Tony's cue to leave. Jean switched over into command mode and started issuing instructions for the disposition of the horses and other pilfered supplies. Kel and Natasha were dismissed with instructions to take the rest of the day off.

Tony nodded to Natasha, all very civil, and sidestepped Wilson (who recently had started giving him the sorts of looks that threatened to turn into conversations, which… no, not yet). Kel headed in the direction of the town square, presumably to stash her gear somewhere and get cleaned up. Tony watched her go, and tried to decide if he was going to say something to her or not.

The two of them hadn't talked much since… that one night. It was understandable: she'd been busy going on missions and working in the infirmary, and he'd been busy building bombs and avoiding her.

Being around Kel kicked off a baffling mixture of conflicting impulses. There was still a small part of his mind that went screaming for damage control whenever he saw her. She could repeat the things he'd told her to anyone she liked — Jean, Avengers, random passers-by — and there'd be nothing Tony could do. Of course, she hadn't done any such thing, and he had no rational reason to believe that she would. And, when he could convince himself to relax about it, Tony found it… maybe… kind of all right to think that she was on his side in some capacity. The whole bit where she'd been keeping tabs on him during that spat with Romanoff should have been irritating, but it had actually, weirdly, helped a little.

So yeah, they were fine, everything was fine, and he decided that it was more likely to stay that way if he kept avoiding her for now.

Anyway, it was time to get back to work. Alisha and Peter had already left. Tony had been lingering over lunch in order to finish running some numbers on their most recent explosive compound. Jean and her draconian 'mother may I' rules about weapons tests had slowed them down a bit — the woman had no respect for the momentum of innovation — but in the last couple of days, they'd hit upon some significant improvements to the initial formulation.

Tony got his notes out of his pocket, and scribbled down the numbers as the last of the calculations clicked through. If his math was right (like there was any doubt), they were looking at as much as a three hundred percent increase over the original explosive yield.

The team of bombmakers had their own facility now. They were calling it a lab. It was actually a shack. (Tony had seen worse.) Alisha, as the local expert, had taken point on the setup. Plants featured rather more heavily than Tony was used to, but Alisha knew her business and the manufacturing process was coming together.

Their collaboration was also coming together, albeit a little more slowly. It had taken a dedicated campaign to get Alisha to call him 'Tony'. It was still a relatively recent development that she was willing to argue with him, and he'd had to float some creatively impossible suggestions in order to push her into it. But they were getting there. The telepathy thing weirded him out a little, but she'd assured him that it wasn't constantly switched on.

"But I was eavesdropping on the Mjentur most of the time," she'd admitted. "That's how I figured out how a lot of the chemistry around here works. It's not like I had to start completely from scratch."

"Right," Tony'd replied, "because the aliens did a lot of their thinking in English?"

"Well… no."

Jean's injunction against running roughshod over Alisha still rankled, when Tony let himself think about it. Contrary to Jean's apparent perceptions of him, he was pretty sure he could have gotten along with whoever had been doing this job. But it certainly didn't hurt that Alisha was brilliant.

Back home, the problem wouldn't have been that difficult. Any chemical engineer worth their salt could have whipped up at least a modestly exothermic reaction from what could be found beneath the average kitchen sink. But in this place, there was what was _supposed_ to happen, and then there were the small correction terms because of the ways that this universe was put together wrong ( _go home, quantum mechanics, you're drunk_ ). Life got exciting when they turned into _big_ correction terms, and suddenly instead of trinitrotoluene, you ended up with a sad greyish sludge that smelled like death. Or occasionally the other way around. And Alisha had not only deciphered the basic laws, she'd found a practical method for converting a bunch of ore refinery byproducts into a damned effective explosive compound, with no computers or references and only the most elementary of tools.

Tony didn't impress easily, and he was pretty damn impressed.

He stepped inside their little shack, where Alisha had already lined up the afternoon's supplies and equipment. Peter was next door, working with the processing crew. Tony would consider letting him help once they'd finalized their process and proved that it was safe, but for the moment the kid was better off using his enhanced strength to shovel fuel for the furnace.

"Here's the last of the figures," Tony said, and handed over his notes.

Alisha skimmed them. "Wow," she said. "That's even better than I'd hoped. Should we run off a test batch?"

Tony gestured expansively at the workbench, and they got to it.

The process of manufacturing an explosive had moments that required the utmost care and attention, separated by long stretches of waiting around. Their formula required several slow, controlled temperature changes, some with careful stirring and others simply with fingers crossed that the mixture wasn't going to blow up in their faces. Incidentally, temperature measurements on this terrible, terrible planet were done with a plant: a vine ran down a channel in their flask, and as the heat rose, a color change from green to yellow crept along it at a precise rate. At least, Tony sure as hell hoped it was precise.

They made their way through the first stage without anybody losing their eyebrows, after which the two of them had some time to chat.

"So who do you work for, back in the real world?" Tony asked.

"Sorry," Alisha said. "Jean has these rules. We're not supposed to talk about things like that."

"Of course. The shroud of mystery." Their thermometer-vine was coloring a little too quickly, and Tony eased the dial on the burner back a notch. "Well, I know it's not Stark Industries, because if you worked for us I would have heard of you before now. How much are they paying you?"

Her jaw dropped. "Tony, that's _rude_!"

"Over the line? You're right, it doesn't matter. Whatever it is, we'll double it."

"What? Who?"

"SI," Tony said. "We're poaching you. Just a little something to look forward to when we get home — don't worry about it."

She blinked at him from behind her goggles. "You're doing what?"

"Poaching you. In the sense of offering you a job that is superior in all regards to your current job, so that you leave your current job and come to work for us instead."

"Maybe I like my current job!"

"'Maybe' you like your current job? So, you don't _actually_ like it, but you're open to the hypothetical possibility of liking it?"

She scowled. "I like my job just fine. It's beyond me why you're suddenly so interested in it."

"Seriously?" Tony said. "You had how many months to reinvent the entire field of chemistry from the ground up, with whatever tools you could find lying around an ore refinery, without anyone noticing what you were doing? Do you know how many people could have done that?" It was an interesting question, actually, and he paused to consider. "Well, I could have. Bruce could have. Various department heads at— all right, it turns out that I personally know several people who could have done it, but I move in certain circles and— you know what, not the point. You're good, we need you, you've been poached."

Alisha was still displaying a distinct lack of enthusiasm. "That's assuming we even make it home," she muttered.

Shit. Tony had been going for lighthearted banter, not contemplation of their imminent mortality. "You have doubts?" he asked.

"You don't?" Alisha nodded at the glass beaker that was slowly heating on the workbench. "What we're doing here makes sense to me. I can see the structures of the reagents, and how each step transforms them into the desired output. There's a process, and I understand it. But when it comes to this… _war_ business…" She spread her hands helplessly. "Look, I don't care how much insider information Kel managed to pick up — Jean can't _possibly_ know what the enemy army looks like. Not exactly. She's guessing that all you superhero types will be stronger or smarter or whatever, but that's all it is — a guess. Or… an extrapolation, maybe. But there isn't a _process_. Yeah, that scares me."

Back at that fateful strategy meeting, Alisha had been the swing vote. If she'd seriously balked at the plan, Tony was positive that Jean would have gone a different way, even if it had meant taking drastic measures to prevent further interference from the Avengers. He sometimes wondered if Alisha knew that.

"You seemed to be onboard a couple weeks ago," he said.

"Yeah, well. Jean has a tendency to be right about things. I can know that, and believe in it, and still be nervous. Can't I?"

"Sure can."

"What do you think our chances are?" Alisha asked. "I mean, you must have thought about it."

Whether or not he believed that they were all going to die tended to fluctuate from minute to minute, which was probably not a helpful observation. "Actually, I'm still processing the 'you superhero types' remark," Tony said instead.

She gave an exasperated sigh. "You know what I meant."

"Yes, I do know what you meant, and in particular, I know that your 'you' contained a 'me'. You think of me as a superhero type. I'm touched. I might be tearing up a little."

"Do people still come to work for you once they find out what you're like in person?"

"Ah, but you won't be working for me. I'm not the boss anymore, I'm just R&D and recruitment. You'll like the boss. I'll make sure you meet her when you come in for orientation at your new job."

Temporarily stymied, Alisha just huffed at him and returned her attention to stirring the beaker. But Tony could tell that she was also trying to suppress a smile. He called that a win.

 

* * *

 

Steve had been thinking recently about the inertia of history. He'd had more cause than most to wonder if one person could make a real change, whether to the broader course of events or simply to their own life. In some ways, he'd come so far from where he'd begun, but in others he just seemed to be chasing his own tail. Hydra hadn't been stopped: they'd come back stronger than ever. He'd lost Bucky once, only by some miracle to discover him here in the future… and then to lose him a second time. The serum had been an amazing gift, and now it had been taken away. It was as if certain patterns, once set into motion, were inescapable, no matter how hard he might try.

"On your left!"

As for instance.

Sam went running cheerfully past. Steve knew for a fact that Sam did not usually go for a run in the late afternoon. This was one hundred percent payback.

At least Steve could walk now, more or less. It had been a few days since he'd first managed to cross the camp from his room to the showers unaided, and now Aaron had cleared him to start working up to a lap around the camp perimeter. He shuffled along on legs that felt the wrong size and shape, that ached and wobbled and sometimes seemed to have a mind of their own.

It had been a long time — a lifetime — since he'd had to struggle like this. After the Vita-Ray chamber, there had been that moment of shock — _sounds_ and _colors_ and _is this what working lungs feel like? My God_ — combined with physical disorientation when everything had been the wrong height and a little too small, but it had worn off within minutes. Physical skills and coordination like he'd never dreamed possible had just _arrived_ , fully formed and accessible. What was happening to him now was completely different. The body he was wearing was a stranger to him.

But he had no choice but to try and adapt. His circuit began at the edge of the forest behind the infirmary — he'd been assured that nothing dangerous was going to jump out of the trees and eat him — and his goal was to reach the opposite side of the camp, behind the showers. Steve had chosen the camp dinner hour for this endeavor so that he would be less likely to cross paths with the other residents while they were at their jobs. He supposed that he should be making a greater effort to mingle, but people wanted to see Captain America, not some guy who could barely walk.

Steve made his ponderous way past the camp's collection of — for want of a better term — horses. There were three midsize ones and two huge ones, the latter of which were arguably a closer parallel to oxen (although the wings and the glittering scales made any Earth reference hard to swallow). Each one milled about at the end of a length of rope that secured it to a tree — a lesson learned after one of the oxen had wandered over to see what was being served for dinner one evening and brought a wall of the greenhouse with it.

Past the herd was the eastern road, and the halfway point of Steve's half-circuit. The vibranium processing plant and its associated buildings were up ahead. At this hour, the facility was quiet.

"On your left!" Sam crowed as he lapped Steve again. Steve supposed that he deserved this.

He crossed the road. One of the little sheds that stood next to the main structure of the plant was visibly newer and shoddier than the rest. Plainly it had been built under the current administration, and Steve wondered what its purpose was.

As if in answer to his question, the door burst open and Tony, Alisha and Spider-Man came boiling out.

Tony shoved the two younger people ahead of him and swiped his arm through the air when he caught sight of Steve. " _Move_!" he yelled.

Though his broken coordination and sluggish reflexes made it feel like he was slogging through concrete, Steve managed to push himself into a run. He'd barely made it three steps when the roof of the shed blew off.

All four of them threw themselves to the ground. Debris rained down like hail, and someone gave a yelp of pain.

The noise and the shower tapered off, and finally ceased. Steve brushed splinters out of his hair, and worked on sitting up again. The full-body impact from hitting the ground had left him aching and winded (and how absurd was _that_ ).

A couple of yards away, Tony rolled himself off of Alisha, and the two of them sat up slowly, side-by-side. Spider-Man, who was of course much faster than the rest of them, had already sprung to his feet and was dusting himself off.

"Whoops," said Alisha.

"Yeah," said Tony.

"Explosive yield is definitely improving."

"Yeah."

"Still some idiosyncrasies in the manufacturing process."

"Yeah."

"I'm pretty sure I know what went wrong."

"Yeah," said Sam. "It blew up." He jogged to a halt next to the group still on the ground. "Is anyone hurt?"

"I think we're okay," Alisha said, although she still sounded a little dazed.

Sam made a move like he was going to offer Tony or Alisha a hand up, but Spider-Man quickly cut him off.

"Thanks, kid," Tony said. He took a few quick steps away from the crowd, and ran a hand through his hair as he surveyed the damage to the building. Alisha, meanwhile, was looking from Steve to Sam and back, a little wide-eyed.

Steve had also found his feet again. "Are you sure you're okay?" he said to her. "Your arm is bleeding."

" _Captain America_ ," Alisha breathed. Then she looked down and noticed the small streak of blood on her forearm. "Oh! I didn't even feel that. It must have been from the explosion. I mean… _obviously_ it was from the explosion, where else would it be from. Um. I'm fine, thank you, Captain."

Tony muttered, "Trust me, it wears off."

It was the first time Steve and Tony had been in such close proximity while Steve had been awake to see it. He still had trouble believing that Tony had spent any time at his bedside, but multiple sources had confirmed it. Obviously there were still quite a lot of fences to mend, but that gesture had to have meant something, right?

Feeling more than a little self-conscious, Steve searched for something low-key to say, and finally settled on, "Hi, Tony."

Tony locked eyes with him, just for a second, then let his gaze drift past like Steve wasn't there. "Before we go back in," he said to Alisha, "I'm thinking we should check the air quality. The test kits are in Shed Two, right? I'll just—"

"Yeah, I know where those are!" Spider-Man exclaimed. "I'll go get one!"

"Or he can go get one," Tony said with a sigh as the boy ran off.

"Tony—"

But Tony was still ignoring him. "You know, it isn't even that bad," he said, gesturing to the shed and its lack of roof. "Skylights are already the look in this place. We neaten up the edges, stretch a window film over it — good as new."

"Can we please—"

"After that," Tony continued doggedly to Alisha, "it looks like we'll have to revisit the temperature control problem. I had a few thoughts—"

This was _ridiculous_. Steve reached out, closed his hand around Tony's arm—

And reeled back in shock at the burst of pain in his mouth when Tony's fist connected.

There was a moment that felt balanced on the edge of a precipice. Then a reflex kicked in that was carved in the bone: if they knocked you down, you got back up again. Steve balled up his fist and got ready to swing—

Except Spider-Man had appeared out of nowhere and planted himself between Steve and Tony, and Sam was wading in, to protect Steve or to stop him he couldn't tell, and there was shouting that Steve couldn't make out thanks to the ringing in his ears, and—

" _Stop_!"

The voice demanded instant obedience. Steve and everyone else froze in place.

Jean came sweeping in with all the force of a tidal wave. Her eyes were sparking with anger. This was the company commander about to tear a strip off the company screw-up. Steve had to resist the impulse to snap to attention.

She drew to a halt, and treated each of them to an uncomfortably long and searching look.

"I'm so glad we began with a nice loud explosion," she bit out, "so that everyone knew just where to look."

"He started it," Tony said, because that was actually the level they'd sunk to.

"I didn't ask," Jean snapped. She paused again, and took a slow, controlled breath. "First of all, we live in wooden buildings in the middle of a forest, so I trust you can appreciate the urgency with which I ask: is anything on fire?"

"No," Alisha said. "They have these fire suppression nets. I strung some up over the workbench in case something like this happened. The reaction was damped, and it's spent itself by now."

"Very well. Your work with explosives is suspended until I receive a report on what went wrong, and what steps you'll be taking to keep it from happening again."

"It's the same problem I've had from the beginning," Alisha said. "Fuel for a blast furnace is terrible when it comes to controlled—"

Jean held up a hand to cut her off. "I don't mean now," she said. "You and Tony can give me the full story tomorrow."

"Yeah. Um. Sorry."

"There seems to have been no permanent damage done. Let's focus on improving the safeguards."

Tony opened his mouth, took the full force of Jean's glare, and shut it again.

"Speaking of damage," Jean continued, "it strikes me that volatile chemicals and open wounds make a poor match. Alisha, please go and have that arm looked after. Peter, walk with her. This time I _do_ mean now," she added, and the two of them hopped to it.

Three to go.

Jean turned her attention on him. "Steve, are you injured?"

Actually, his mouth still stung, and his earlier fall seemed to have jarred something in his wrist. "I'm fine," Steve said. "Didn't feel a thing."

"Nevertheless, I'll have Aaron look in on you later. Was there something you needed in this part of camp?"

He glanced at Tony, who was now staring at the ground with his arms folded sullenly.

"I was just out for a walk," Steve said.

"I see," Jean said. "Next time? Walk around."

"Good advice," Sam said before Steve could retort. "We'll do that. Steve? Come on, let's head back."

Sam put a hand on his shoulder, and Steve let himself be led away. Apparently there was nothing worth sticking around for.

Behind him, he heard Jean say, "Tony, let's have a conversation." Two sets of footsteps headed off in the other direction.

The anger drifted away as Steve walked, leaving a shaky sort of emptiness behind. He didn't know what he'd been expecting. It had been over a month since Siberia — over eleven months for Tony — and nothing had changed for either one of them. Yet another pattern that Steve had no idea how to break.

After a few minutes of silence, Sam asked, "So how's your day going?"

"Sam."

"Me, I spent the day digging a bunch of rocks out of a cave wall, same as yesterday. The pebble that got caught in my boot probably had enough vibranium in it to fund my retirement. Well — anywhere except Wakanda."

"Sam, I—"

"I had supper with the rest of my shift — they're nice folks, you should meet them sometime — and then I figured I'd unwind a little at the end of the day with a quick jog around camp. You know what happened next?"

Steve hung his head in defeat. "I hear there was an explosion."

"Or two."

They were actually walking a little faster than Steve was comfortable with, not that he was going to say anything about it. "I get the point," he said. "I shouldn't have pushed him. But how are we ever supposed to fix this if he won't even talk to me?"

"I know you don't want to hear this," Sam said, "but not everything can be fixed. You made some choices, Steve. So did I. Maybe one of the consequences is that we don't get to go back to the way things were before."

His calf muscles were threatening to cramp up. To try and distract himself, Steve flexed his wrist. Now that the shock had worn off, it was surprisingly sore.

"You jam your wrist?" Sam asked.

"It's fine."

"Right. The kind of fine that's swollen already." Sam eyeballed him. "How about we slow the pace a little?"

"I'm _fine_ , Sam," Steve snapped, even as his shaky legs offered up their gratitude.

"You're _not_ fine, Steve," Sam countered. "No one expects you to be fine, and in fact it's pretty damned unreasonable for 'fine' to be anywhere on your radar right now." He stepped out in front of Steve and brought them both to a halt. "Look, this is not the time to be trying to fix every problem at once. It's okay to focus on your own recovery first."

Frustration rose up and threatened to choke him: at his own condition, at the situation with Tony, at the upcoming war that they couldn't possibly be ready for. Steve ground his teeth and tried to quash it back down. He had just enough of a grip on things to know that Sam was probably right, but that didn't make it any easier to swallow.

He settled for saying, "At the moment, I'm pretty focused on finding a place to sit down."

Sam immediately came alongside him and offered his arm for support. "It's just a little further to the showers. Easy does it."

Steve leaned on him, and they slowly started moving forward again. "So, out of curiosity, am I done paying for that morning in DC yet?"

"Dude. Not even close."

 

* * *

 

Tony stomped off into the forest in Jean's wake, something he was pretty damned unhappy to be doing for a second time. He hadn't— _he_ hadn't instigated. He hadn't antagonized. He hadn't done a damned thing except mind his own business. _Rogers_ was the one who'd shown up and gotten in his face, and yet Tony was the one getting dragged off to be yelled at.

The moment Jean stopped walking, he went on the offensive. "What do you want, an apology?" he snapped. "Look, he startled me, so I hit him. It was a reflex."

Unfazed, Jean replied, "If your reflexes are that hair-trigger, should you be working with high explosives?"

Tony flung up his hands. "Fine, he pissed me off, so I hit him. You happy?"

"Do I sound happy?" she retorted, and in point of fact, no, she didn't. But then her eyes closed for a second, and her expression softened. "He shouldn't have grabbed you," she said.

Tony hesitated. That had sounded surprisingly non-accusatory.

"Let there be no mistake," Jean continued, and the accusatory had come roaring back, "I am _not_ happy about the punch. You had other options and you know it, but instead you took a cheap shot because he couldn't stop you."

"I barely tagged him!"

"He can barely _walk_."

Yeah, Tony was over this. "Okay, the scolding thing was cute for the first five seconds, but now you're—"

" _Stop_ there before you say something you can't take back."

Tony's teeth snapped shut.

"He shouldn't have grabbed you," Jean said again. "I'll talk to him about it, and I hope you'll let me know if it happens again."

"You're gonna _talk_ — that's spectacular. Can I watch?"

"No."

Tony turned and started pacing. Fucking Rogers. They'd been doing _so well_ at pretending that they were still on different planets. Why he'd suddenly taken it into his head to… Couldn't the man just leave well enough alone? Or — okay, 'well enough' was probably the wrong phrase for it, but…

And now it was all… stirred up in his head again. Fear and rage and desperation swirling around and pressing down and he was _not_ doing this right now.

Jean walked around into his field of view. He could feel her consciously not crowding him, and the display of consideration just made him angrier.

"Once the beta site has been established," she said, "I plan to station Rogers and at least two of Wilson, Barton and Romanoff there, at least for a few months. They can assist with construction and work on defensive plans for the immediate area. Until then, short of drawing a bright red line down the center of camp and confining the two of you to opposite sides of it, I'm not sure what to do here." She arched her eyebrows slightly. "I'm open to suggestions."

Tony pinched the bridge of his nose. "Seriously, did you go to some kind of corporate seminar on conflict resolution? Some of these lines of yours could be straight off a worksheet."

Jean actually had the nerve to look _hurt_ by that. "I try to proceed from the assumption that the people around me are acting in good faith unless proven otherwise," she said quietly. "I'm sorry if I seem cliché." After an awkward pause, she went on, "Kel and I train hand-to-hand each morning. I've been meaning to ask if you'd consider joining us."

The non sequitur left him blinking in confusion. The first thing he could think to say was, "I thought you and Wilson had a regular thing now."

"The supply delivery is tomorrow, and Wilson will be leaving with the survey team the next morning. If you prefer, you can wait until he's gone."

Tony gave his head a shake. "What are you doing? Why bring this up?"

Jean took a careful half-step closer. "Tony, I don't know what happened between the Avengers—"

"That's right, you _don't_."

"—but it's obvious that you're carrying a lot of anger still," she continued implacably. "Anger that seems to be doing you some harm. I am trying to think of ways that you might safely burn some of it off."

The absolute last thing Tony needed in his life was Jean's insight into his emotional state. He threw her his most dismissive sneer and said, "If I wanted more cardio, I could pick up shifts in the mine. Don't trouble yourself."

And again, that faint shadow of hurt crossed her face. "Of course it's up to you," Jean said. "I'll give you your space, if that's what you want." She turned to go.

Tony waited, staring at nothing and feeling like shit, as her footsteps receded. From amidst the thoughts flurrying around his head, some highlights: he shouldn't have fucking punched Rogers; it actually _had_ been mostly reflex — he'd just barely managed to check his power at the last second — and that was probably… not optimal; between that and the explosion, Jean would have been within her rights to be even more angry than she was; and he'd just taken every possible opportunity to throw her goodwill gestures back in her face.

"Wait."

He heard her stop, then turn around.

"Yes?"

Tony sighed heavily and said, "You're trying to help."

"Yes."

"Even though…"

"You're making it difficult. Yes."

He scratched the back of his head and turned to face her. "It's just that I'm actually trying to cut down on the grievous bodily injuries," he said. "Having you and Kel beat the shit out of me doesn't seem all that relaxing, as such things go."

"Kel and I do push each other," Jean said, "but the rules of engagement are always very clear. Whatever your limits are, she'll respect them. So will I."

"Well. How very safe, sane and consensual of you."

The secretly amused eyeroll made a reappearance. "By the way, Iron Man, you're not going to lull me into underestimating you. I'll confess to being partially motivated by my own curiosity."

Appealing to his ego — always a classic. "I'll think it over," Tony said.

"All I ask."

The tension between them eased a little, and Tony felt like he could breathe again. He took a few sheepish steps in Jean's direction. "Let's take it as read that I'm not nearly as sorry as you think I should be about the whole Rogers situation. But the explosion… that was my fault. I was pushing too fast for a finished product, even though I knew there might be a problem. Sorry. It can be fixed, and we'll fix it."

"Thank you, Tony," she said. "I'm happy to hear that."

And now for the hard part. "Also," he said, and cleared his throat, "there were aspects of this conversation that I could have handled better."

"Yes," Jean said. "There were."

"And now you're not going to give me an inch, are you."

"Out of curiosity, how many inches do you feel entitled to?"

"Fair point." He looked aside. There were trees. There were always trees. He was so heartily sick of trees. "Okay. I had no business jumping down your throat. You might have a point about the whole anger thing." God, this was exhausting. "The problem back on Earth, with the team… There was more to it than just the brawl in Germany. Uh… I'd rather not…"

Jean took pity on him. "You don't have to explain," she said. "But I'd like to think that I haven't given you cause to view me as the enemy. Have I?"

_So_ much worse than the yelling. "No, of course you haven't," Tony said. His face was red-hot with embarrassment.

"Perhaps that's worth remembering."

He nodded. "So… am I grounded? What's the deal here?"

"I still want to hear a full report from you and Alisha tomorrow," Jean said.

"Right."

"Try not to punch Rogers anymore."

"Uh-huh."

"You and I are fine."

"I didn't ask," he said, pushing the envelope. Luckily, she met his cheeky grin with a quiet smile of her own. The bigger problems weren't going away anytime soon, but at least this crisis seemed to be past.

 


	24. Chapter 24

The crowd milling about the eastern road left two distinct circles of empty space around the two key figures in the operation. Natasha flipped a mental coin and turned left, crossing into the no man's land that surrounded Tony and Alisha. They both looked, in their own ways, tense. For Tony, that meant a lot of fidgeting and pacing, while on Alisha it manifested as a thousand-yard stare that didn't inspire a great deal of confidence.

The next time Tony's eccentric orbit carried him in front of Alisha, he stopped and asked her, "So you're ready for this, right?"

Alisha dipped her head to one side. It was not, as such, a nod. "I've got the easy part," she said. "All I have to do is keep them calm and make a blank space. Wanda's the one who has to write over all the memories."

"Sure, fine," Tony said. "But you're ready for this, right?"

Jean came up beside Tony and laid a hand on his shoulder. "Tony, perhaps that's enough hovering," she said, and he yielded a couple of paces. Then she turned to Alisha. "You're ready for this, right?"

"I hate both of you," Alisha groaned. But at least she'd snapped out of her fugue.

"If you have instructions for the loading crew," Jean continued, "this is probably a good moment."

"Yeah, I do," she said, and took a deep breath. "Okay. I'm ready."

Jean called for attention, and the assembled group settled down. Then she yielded the floor to Alisha.

"Um. Hi, everyone," Alisha said, and gave a quick wave. "Okay. The key to this whole thing is for all of you to do exactly what you would do if the guards were still here. Don't talk, don't look up, just unload the things and load the other things, and… you know. Fly casual." She chuckled weakly, then looked down and cleared her throat. "All right? Are there any… questions, or…?" She spread her hands and looked around the assembly.

Maryam said, "The crew on the wagons will be expecting to see the commandant, not the medic. Do you have a plan for that?"

"Right, yeah, that's the whole thing that I'll be doing — keeping them relaxed and kind of out of it so they're not bothered that it's the wrong people," Alisha said. "And the more everybody _else_ acts unbothered, the easier that'll be. Okay? Anything else?"

There was a certain amount of exchanging of looks as people realized that they couldn't properly assess the merits of a plan that had telepathy at the heart of it. This was a leap of faith — carried far more on Jean's charisma than Alisha's. If it failed, the loss of face might not be recoverable.

Also, the entire camp was likely to be wiped out, but that would come later.

Jean obviously knew that, and was doing exactly what she needed to do, which was display absolute confidence in her team. "We'll get into position as soon as Kel arrives," she announced. "It won't be long now. Relax, everyone," she added with a smile. "This will be easy."

After offering Alisha a supportive pat on the arm, Jean crossed the road to the other gap in the crowd where the Avengers were clustered, and Natasha followed.

"You're ready for this, right?" Clint asked Wanda.

"I think so," Wanda said, "as long as everyone acts as normally as possible. There are two problems: they have to not panic when they see things that don't go according to the routine, and later they have to remember the routine. Alisha will keep them calm while the wagons are unloaded, and then I'll replace certain pieces of their memories afterward."

Clint nodded. "Sounds good to me," he said. "So what's the plan, Boss-Lady?"

Jean, who accepted that particular nickname with grudging tolerance, said, "I want you, Sam and Natasha undercover on either side of the road, close to camp. If anything goes wrong, the guards must not be allowed to escape. Neutralize them as expediently as possible."

Clint gave his bowstring a twang. "Shouldn't be a problem. 'Expedient' is my middle name."

"So glad to hear it," she said. "Wanda, the Mjentur will know that something is amiss as soon as they reach the perimeter."

"Then Alisha and I will need to be right at the camp border to get control of their minds before they can start to panic," Wanda said.

"Understood."

Footsteps from the road heralded Kel's return. She arrived at an easy run and rendezvoused with Jean.

"They're not far behind me," she said. "Two wagons, five Mjentur. Nothing out of the ordinary that I could sense."

"Good."

Natasha asked, "Is there any possibility that the illusion will wear off with time?"

The group turned to look at Wanda.

"I think it will last," she said slowly, "but I'm not completely sure. I've never done something like this before."

"We'll need to get some manner of confirmation," Jean said. "Kel, how far can you safely shadow the convoy after they leave?"

Kel shrugged and said, "Back to the garrison, if you want," because a lack of confidence had never been one of her problems.

"No, I'm not having you away from camp for that long," said Jean. "Stay with them, but only to the point where you can still make it back here comfortably before dark. If you sense anything suspicious—"

"Destroy them, bring the wagons and the horses back," Kel said. "Yes."

"And the requisition forms are ready?"

"Of course. I'll get them now." She jogged off again.

Jean turned back the Avengers. "Wanda, whatever you and Alisha need — proximity, line of sight — go ahead and take your optimum positions. Vision, in the event that this goes wrong, your priority is to protect the two telepaths. The rest of us will take down the guards."

"I understand," he said.

Wanda and Vision headed out, picking up Alisha along the way.

Kel, now equipped with paperwork, reappeared beside Jean and gestured toward the road. "Very close now."

"Here we go," Jean announced. "Everyone who's not supposed to be here, find somewhere else to be. The rest of us, let's get into position."

Clint's leg was improving in the sense that almost all of the excised muscle had been replaced, but it still wasn't weight-bearing. He made his way down the road on crutches, bow and quiver slung over his shoulders, and the rest of the combatants followed. Kel had loaned Natasha her second-best sword for the occasion, and Sam was carrying the spear that he'd begun to play with recently. Between those weapons and their more conventional knives, Natasha was confident in their capacity to neutralize a small number of Mjentur, should it come to that.

Earlier that morning, the processing crew had dragged crates of vibranium bars out to the side of the road. Thanks in no small part to Vision's contributions, they had an above-average haul this month — sufficiently so that Jean had ordered some of it held in reserve. Now the processing and mining teams were back on their regular shifts, while the camp maintenance team stood ready to take delivery of the supply shipment.

From her chosen position, Natasha watched the twenty civilians settle themselves into their roles. Jean circulated through them, offering a quiet word here and there, before she too picked up her weapon and took cover beneath the trees. Kel stood by the vibranium shipment, playing the role of the camp commandant. Wanda and Alisha were on opposite sides of the road. Everyone was ready.

They waited.

Kel's scouting was good. Barely five minutes later, Natasha began to hear hoofbeats. She closed her eyes and listened. Multiple sources. Distinct rhythms from the horses and the Mjentur, at least four sets of each.

The convoy came into sight not long after. It consisted of two heavy wagons being pulled by teams of the larger class of horse (Steve was right — it made more sense to call them oxen). The wagons were escorted by five Mjentur soldiers on foot. They passed by the concealed backup team without a second look and approached the camp perimeter.

Kel faced the incoming personnel with her chin up, and spoke a brisk sentence in Mjeth.

But of course an attitude wasn't nearly enough to carry this off. Surprise spread through the group, which quickly turned to wariness. Hands went to hilts of swords. The loose escort began to tighten up into a defensive formation.

Alisha stepped forward and placed herself just behind Kel's shoulder. She folded her hands before her, and smiled politely.

And the Mjentur began to relax again.

The effect wasn't instantaneous. There was a lengthy stretch of confusion. Natasha watched five alien faces become distracted, struggle to focus, and finally settle into blankness.

Alisha nudged Kel's shoulder, and she repeated her greeting. This time, the Mjentur at the head of the formation replied in kind. He sounded a bit drowsy, but who could blame him for it. Kel handed over her paperwork, then turned and gave an order to the assembled humans.

Everyone knew their jobs. The Mjentur drove their wagons a short distance into the camp and swung them around for convenient access. The maintenance crew began unloading bins and boxes filled with food and other supplies. Kel stood by to supervise.

The soporific effect clearly took Alisha some effort to maintain. The smile had slid off her face as soon as she'd ceased to be under scrutiny. As the unloading process dragged on, Natasha could see her legs begin to wobble. Wanda, on the other side of the road where she'd somehow escaped attention, saw it too. She flowed in that surreal manner of hers where she seemed not to occupy all points between the start and the finish, and took Alisha by the hand. That seemed to shore her up.

The work passed in eerie silence. Natasha felt as if they were all participating in a shared dream. If it were her mind being altered rather than the aliens', she wondered if this was what it would feel like.

The boxes were off. The crates were on. Kel said what Natasha assumed to be the Mjeth equivalent of "See you next month" to the five guards. Moving sluggishly, they resumed their positions in formation around the carts, and got the oxen moving. The two wagons began to retreat back the way they'd come.

It was Wanda's turn. Red light danced across her fingertips as she gathered her powers, and more of it glittered in her eyes. She stepped into the road and raised both hands, and writhing, coiling tendrils of light snaked their way through the air. Five minds, five beams. The Mjentur froze in place as one. If there was going to be a problem, it was going to be now.

A portentously long pause. Then all five Mjentur seemed to wake from their slumber. The drowsiness that Alisha had imposed on them evaporated, but there was no anger or alarm to take its place, only alertness. The soldiers marched on.

Natasha didn't want to jinx anything, but their plan just might have worked.

Everyone held position and quite possibly their breath until the convoy was out of sight and the sounds of hooves and wooden wheels had long faded. Then Kel gave the all-clear.

"Good job, everyone," Jean announced once she'd returned to the road. "You just earned us all another twenty-five days. Let's get these supplies put away. And after that—"

Whatever additional request Jean had been about to make was interrupted when Alisha folded up and sank to the ground.

Wanda was closest, and Natasha moved swiftly to meet her. "Keep them on target," she said to Jean as she passed. "We've got this."

Very sensibly, Jean took her advice and reiterated her instructions to the rest of the crowd (it turned out that the second thing she'd been about to say was to give everyone the day off once the supplies had been stored). Natasha crouched down next to Alisha, noting peripherally that Tony had reappeared from wherever he'd hidden himself and was hovering from a distance.

It turned out that Alisha hadn't passed out cold so much as… non-optionally sat. She blinked muzzily at Natasha and asked, "Did it work?"

"I think you'd know better than I would," Natasha said. Alisha's pulse was strong, but she looked exhausted and she obviously wasn't fully alert. She needed rest, quite possibly under medical supervision.

Jean joined the group on the ground. "You did great, Li," she said, "and I promise you can take as much time off as you need. Is there any way you can you give me ten seconds of standing under your own power?"

Alisha stared at Jean blankly for a long moment, but then finally seemed to take stock of her surroundings. "Oh. I sat down."

"You did."

"Huh." She nodded slowly. "Okay. We can fix that."

With Natasha on one side and Wanda on the other, Alisha was lifted to her feet again.

"I'm okay," she said. "It'll be easier next time. At least, I think so. Let's go with that." She turned to Wanda. "My _God_ , you're strong. I mean, I was at my limits there, but you barely even _felt_ that."

Wanda's face colored, and she didn't answer.

"Aaron is waiting for you at the infirmary," Jean said to Alisha. "Think you can make it there?"

"We'll keep her company," Natasha said.

"Thank you," Jean said. "And Wanda? Nice job. We couldn't pull this off without you."

Her blush deepened. "I'm glad that it worked," she responded.

Jean left to join the teams now hauling boxes into camp, leaving Wanda and Natasha on escort duty. Alisha was walking under her own power, but slowly. Her normally deep brown skin had a faint greyish cast to it, although she was looking a little better than when she'd first collapsed.

The three of them were of course moving in the same direction as the supplies were, which meant that they were constantly being passed by the people who had just gotten front-row seats to Alisha and Wanda's demonstration of power. Alisha had the banked political capital of having been here as long as Jean had, while Wanda was a stranger. It showed in the way that passers-by reacted to them: Alisha got grateful smiles, while Wanda got wary distance. The blatant disparity in their respective power levels was probably exacerbating the effect. It wasn't fair, but Natasha understood.

Aaron came out to meet them well before they reached the infirmary, and Natasha and Wanda transferred custody of their charge. Once Alisha was taken care of, Wanda hesitated, obviously at loose ends.

She and Natasha hadn't talked much after the Ultron incident — or, more specifically, they hadn't talked much _about_ the Ultron incident. In the immediate aftermath, there had been compelling political reasons to present the world with a united and fully functioning Avengers team. Steve had made an official team declaration that bygones were bygones, and everyone had simply done their best to move on.

(Natasha had been able to forgive the injury to herself far more easily than she had the injury to Bruce. Johannesburg had been the beginning of the end for him; he hadn't deserved that on his conscience.)

Wanda, for her part, had been reeling from the death of Pietro, and from the very, _very_ near-catastrophe that her actions had helped to bring about. She'd grabbed onto the role that Steve had offered like a lifeline — like if she clung to it hard enough, her past would fall away. As if the past ever did that.

At any rate, they hadn't talked much. Maybe that had been a mistake.

Natasha said, "It doesn't just stop."

Wanda frowned at her. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, if you're waiting for that magic moment when the switch flips and the world sees you as a person and not a weapon, it won't happen. Real life isn't that neat."

"That's not…" But the reflexive denial couldn't survive the harsh light of day. Wanda's face fell. "I know that I hurt people," she said. "I know that being sorry isn't good enough. But sometimes… the thought that nothing will _ever_ be good enough…" She broke off and fell silent, watching the camp personnel as they went about their jobs. "They're afraid of me."

"Some are," Natasha agreed. "More are afraid of Vision. Most of them don't get within arm's reach of Kel if they can help it. And it's not like I've been welcomed onto the social scene with open arms."

"So what can I do?"

"Accept that you'll never fully wipe the slate clean," she said. "Understand that the power you carry is your responsibility, and you will never, not for a moment, have the right to be careless with it. Seek out the company of people who treat you like a person, and know that there will always be some who want to treat you like an asset. Do better now than you did before."

Wanda's quiet laugh wasn't about humor, Natasha knew, so much as it was an expression of emotional overload. "That wasn't exactly what I was asking."

"I know," Natasha said. "But it's still the answer. I'm going to let Steve know that the op was a success. Want to come?"

"No, thanks," Wanda said after a moment's thought. "I think I'll see if I can help carry some boxes."

They parted ways, and Natasha headed for the little shack behind the infirmary that had become Steve's quarters. She knocked and went in.

Steve had been lying down on the tiny cot, but he levered himself up on his elbows when Natasha entered. "Hey," he said. "What's up?"

"Just thought you'd like to know that the supply delivery has been and gone," she said. "As far as we can tell, the illusion worked. Kel is going to shadow them for a while and report back tonight."

"Good to hear," Steve replied, not sounding terribly enthusiastic.

He sat up slowly, and Natasha had to suppress a wince at how much effort it took. She couldn't judge his recovery by super-soldier standards anymore, she knew that, but it was still shocking to see him in this condition. And if that was her response, she could only imagine what it was like for him.

Once Steve was settled again, she took his chin in her hand and gently tilted his head to one side.

This, at least, provoked an expression. Steve furrowed his brow and asked, "Nat, what are you doing?"

"Checking for a black eye," she replied. "You got popped pretty good last night."

Steve scoffed. "He barely grazed me," he said, a blatant lie. "Although you might find this amusing: I got scolded for it this morning. Jean stopped by and gave me a talking-to about not touching people who don't want to be touched. Because in that scenario, apparently _I_ was the one who was out of line."

Internally, Natasha groaned. Scarier people than Jean had told Steve not to do something, and the result was usually that he went out and did it ten times harder. "Jean has to keep order and maintain morale," she said, taking a seat on the chair by the cot. "We don't make for a very convincing defensive force if we can't stop fighting each other."

Steve looked down, and his mouth twisted wryly. It was obvious what he was thinking: that _he_ didn't make for a convincing defensive force at all.

"Give it some more time," Natasha said. "I managed to have a conversation with him a while back that didn't come to blows. You'll get there, too, when you're both ready, but you can't push."

"That's more or less what Sam said."

"Well, Sam's a bright guy."

In a fairly transparent bid to change the topic, Steve said, "I realize this is jumping the gun a little, but Sam also told me that Jean and Kel might have some kind of backup plan for how the team can get home without getting arrested. They're being vague on the details right now — Sam didn't know why, only that there's some piece of the plan that Kel doesn't want to be made public yet. Still, I hope it pans out." He gave a sad little self-deprecating smile. "My diversions aren't what they used to be."

Natasha kept it off her face, of course, but this was intriguing news indeed.

After spending eight days with Kel on the raiding mission, Natasha knew that she was focused and highly trained, sincere in her intentions, and lying. The lie was there in the way she seemed to know every inch of the forest that surrounded them. In the level of influence she'd had over the labor camp administration. _We do business with races like the Nyth_. Little pieces, none individually damning, but every time Natasha tried to view the complete picture, it warped like a badly measured carpet.

And perhaps the biggest clue: _Another time when two will have to be enough_. The more Natasha thought about it, the more she was convinced that that line had been a major slip. Jean and Kel were planning another mission — possibly something concerning the return to Earth — and they wanted to keep it to themselves. And Natasha didn't think she could allow it.

It wasn't that she doubted their motives. The two of them were absolutely dedicated to protecting the abductees and bringing them back home — they'd made that clear. But Jean was a civilian who'd had a wildly incendiary situation fall into her lap out of the clear blue sky. No matter what prior experiences she might have had with enhanced individuals, she couldn't possibly have been prepared to manage a crisis like this one. She'd put herself in charge of it because she'd felt that she had no other choice — Natasha did understand that — but in an operation of this scope, even small details could get people killed, and Natasha's every instinct screamed that their secret was far from small.

Natasha respected Jean's loyalty to her team, but she had her own people to protect.

"Interesting," she said. "I'll have to keep an eye on that. So — lunch?"

 

* * *

 

After the little piece of excitement that was the supply delivery, Jean declared a holiday — which was all well and good except she made it mandatory for everyone, including bombmakers who'd just gotten their work unsuspended.

"Your team is already down a member," she said to Tony. "Take a break for the rest of the day. Relax."

"This _is_ relaxing."

She arched one eyebrow. "The ever-present threat of blowing the roof off the building is relaxing?"

_Hurtful_. "So many counterpoints to be made, I hardly know where to start," Tony said. "One, the probability of blowing the roof off the building is currently zero, because the building has no roof."

"Is that really your argument?"

"One of several."

Jean gave a faint sigh. "Tony, it's one afternoon," she said. "Go outside. Or, if that's simply unbearable, go inside a different building than this one. Besides, there's a chore I need to take care of, and I'd like to take Peter with me, if that's all right."

The kid perked up like a Labrador Retriever who'd just heard the word 'walk'.

Tony crossed his arms. "What kind of chore?"

"I need to make a trip out to the ravine," she said. "There's a modest amount of climbing involved, and Peter strikes me as the best qualified."

"Can I go?" Peter asked.

This was about thirty percent genuine concern and seventy percent giving Peter a hard time. "I don't know," Tony said. "The ravine's a long ways outside the camp. Is it safe?"

"There's a corridor of land along the western road that's cordoned off," Jean said. "I'll bring a weapon, but there's no wildlife large enough to be dangerous. I've made this trip on my own many times. Naturally, you're also welcome to come."

Tony sucked air through his teeth. "Yeah… if I'm being forced to take a day off, a four-hour hike isn't how I want to spend it. But all right, you kids go ahead."

The fact was, the blow-up with Rogers the day before had gotten his head twisted up to the point where sleep had been out of reach for most of the previous night. One night wasn't so bad, but if this kept up (and it would), the next day was going to suck and the day after that would be when he actually needed a break, and wouldn't get it. He'd been hoping for a full day of work to keep him distracted, insofar as that was possible. The supply shipment had godawful timing.

Lacking better options, Tony decided to pass the afternoon in Jean's office, pilfering her office supplies, for the purpose of getting down on paper some of the siege weapon designs he'd been mentally roughing out in his spare moments. They were, after all, in a forest on the side of a mountain: large wooden structures that hurled rocks were pretty much a gimme. The change of pace from chemistry to basic mechanics was somewhat refreshing (not that he planned on telling Jean that) and, though certainly not _taxing_ , the project was at least engaging enough to fill the hours. Sort of. Tony also valiantly resisted the urge to flip through Jean's notes, not least because her handwriting was so appalling that it took him half a page to figure out that she was mixing English with Chinese.

When he started hearing activity from the kitchen next door, Tony left the schematics on Jean's desk, pocketed the pencil, and headed out. He wondered who on this mandatory vacation day had been dragooned into making dinner.

After the habitual check to ensure that there was a sizable buffer between himself and any and all Avengers, Tony made his way through the serving line (white mush, green mush, just like every goddamned day for the past eleven months), and got a table with his old combat unit: Gabriela, Frank and Pavel. They had all had their scars removed; by Tony's count, Aaron was a day or two from being done with the entire Denver contingent. The three of them were also among the delegation that was heading out the next day to scout the beta site.

Alisha, looking much improved, made her way out to the picnic tables not long after, and Tony waved her over. Peter and Jean apparently hadn't gotten back yet.

"Hey, you guys," Alisha said to her fellow Denver abductees. "Hi, Tony," she added shyly, which was an unfortunate regression.

"The hero of the hour," Tony responded, and twiddled his fingers next to his temple. "That's a hell of a trick you've got there."

She looked down at her deeply depressing plate. "Does it freak you out?" she asked.

"Yes," Gabriela said.

"Nah," Tony countered. Alisha looked skeptical, and he amended, "Maybe that much." He held up thumb and forefinger close together. "Which is a negligible correction to my daily background stranded-in-an-alien-universe, about-to-start-a-war level of freaking out, so don't worry about it."

"It's not a big deal anyway," she said. "Not compared to Wanda. I've never met _anyone_ with her kind of power before."

Wanda's mental powers and the potency thereof were not subjects that Tony particularly wanted to engage with. He managed to swallow a few snide remarks. "Still looked to me like it took both of you," he said instead.

"Yeah, well." She rubbed her temple. "It worked, at least. One down and, what, five to go? Although maybe we won't need to do that last one, when… you know."

Right: in five months, they planned to wipe all the remaining Minotaurs off this side of the continent. At that point, yeah, her brainwashing gimmick might be a wasted effort.

"And you're good now, right?" Tony asked. "All recovered and whatnot?"

"Yeah, Aaron helped me sleep through the worst of the migraine," she replied. "Things are still a bit… halo-ey, but it's wearing off. I'll be fine by tomorrow."

"Good," Tony said. "No more dramatic keeling over, then. Glad to hear it."

She shot him an indignant look that was much more in keeping with her usual personality. "Dramatic?"

"It was pretty heavy on the drama, yeah."

Her mouth twisted up as she tried not to smile. "Well, look at the company I've been keeping lately."

"Wow," Tony said, and turned to his other dining companions. "See, I can't help but feel like that was aimed at me, when it's a _completely_ unjustified—"

"You punched Captain America," Gabriela said.

Oh brother. "That incident has been blown _way_ out of proportion."

"The incident where everyone saw you punch Captain America?" Alisha said. "I mean, you _clocked_ Captain America."

"You decked Captain America," said Gabriela, as if they all hadn't gotten the idea.

"Point of order," Tony protested. "There was no _decking_. The man did not _hit the deck_. I tapped him. _Barely_. Not to mention, he laid hands on me first, which is a critical detail that each of your renditions has unaccountably omitted. _And_ our benevolent overlord put me in timeout over it."

Gabriela's eyebrows went up. "Wait, seriously?" she said. "What did she do?"

Too late, Tony realized that he'd talked himself into a corner. Because what Jean had actually done, somewhere along the line, was insinuate herself onto the short list of people whose opinions he cared about, and then she'd made it clear that he'd disappointed her. ( _I'm not mad, just disappointed_ — a cliché, but also damnably effective. More so given that she'd also been pretty mad.) But obviously that was not the public version of the story.

"Told me not to do it again," he said.

Gab whistled. "Harsh."

"Okay, the three of you are leaving soon, right? Just so I have something to look forward to?"

Happily, that diverted the flow of things. "Yeah, it's us and Team Two, and two of the Oregon M's, plus Falcon and the…" Gab circled her wrist vaguely. "The purple android guy, I never remember…"

"Vision," Tony said.

"Vision, right. I guess… because he has enhanced vision?"

"No. Well — yeah, he does, but he goes by 'Vision' because Thor had a vision that predicted his creation." He took a look around at the expressions on his audience, and shrugged helplessly. "Long story."

Frank shook his head. "Seriously, Stark, your fuckin' life."

"You're telling me."

As Tony understood it, the basic plan for the upcoming mission was to take a group that was large enough to scare off the majority of predators, using two of the horses to haul enough supplies for an extended stay. Once they'd picked out a site and set up security measures comparable to those that protected the camp, Vision would be free to escort teams back and forth as needed.

"Well, I'm sure you'll have a great time on your little trek tomorrow," Tony said. "From what I hear, it's a walk in the park out there."

Gab chuckled. "Hey, a week or two roughing it with Falcon? I don't give a shit _what_ tries to eat us — it'll be worth it."

"She's a fan," Frank said with a dismissive snort.

"No, I'm an Airman," Gab countered. "I don't even care that much about the Avenger thing. He was a PJ, and they're the real deal. I'd feel the same if it was War Machine, for that matter," she said with a nod to Tony. "There's a man who had a pretty spectacular career."

A career that wasn't over yet, if Tony had anything to do with it. "You still in?" he asked her.

"No, medical discharge three months ago." She scowled. "Or — you know what I mean. Three months before this place."

Tony nodded. If she wanted a sit-down with Rhodey, he'd have to make inquiries once they got home. And Rhodes would know a lot better than he would what kind of support she could use in her post-military career. Least he could do.

Talk drifted into speculation about the trip and the probable hazards. There was a lot of bizarre second-hand information floating around about the flora and fauna, most of which Tony would have dismissed as implausible except… scaly, sparkly winged horses.

The sun was more than halfway behind the trees and Tony absolutely wasn't starting to panic when Jean and Peter finally returned. Peter had on a large canvas knapsack. Jean was using her spear as a walking stick. They both looked undamaged.

Jean handed her weapon to Peter and sent him off in the direction of her office, then started going around and doing her thing, checking in with people and so forth. Once she had everyone's attention, she updated the day count and gave her habitual briefing. This evening's focus was the beta site survey: personnel, timeline, objectives.

"Everyone due to depart tomorrow, please meet me in my office to review some final details," she concluded, and headed in that direction.

"That's us," Frank said, and stood up from the bench. "See you around, Stark."

"Yeah. Good luck out there," Tony replied.

Peter, by that point, had grabbed himself a plate of mush. He sat down next to Alisha, opposite Tony.

"So what kind of errand did Jean have you running?" Tony asked him once greetings had been exchanged.

"It was really interesting," Peter said. "There's these rubbery disks that stick to the trees, and they sprout really fine strands that run from one to the next. They kind of look like spider threads, actually, and the tensile strength is _amazing_ , I gotta figure out what they're made of. But they're also incredibly inelastic, so when they wrap around something, it's like wire — it cuts right through. They make a barrier around the camp and all the way to the gorge on both sides, like a U, and that's what keeps the really dangerous animals out."

That _did_ sound interesting, actually. Tony knew that he'd be lucky to escape this place with his life, but it would be a pleasant bonus if he could also bring back some alien materials to play with.

"What were the two of you doing to them, exactly?" he asked.

"Harvesting them," said Peter, and gestured expansively with his spoon. "See, you stick a nail or something metal in a disk to make it pull its threads in, then you can cut it in half to make two. Now that we've got a bunch of them, the survey people can use them at the new campsite — you set them up on posts or trees around the area you want to protect, and they slice up anything that tries to cross."

The kid's enthusiasm was contagious, and Tony couldn't help but smile. "Glad to hear you're earning your keep," he said.

The sky had noticeably darkened and most of the tables had emptied when Jean's meeting broke up. Conveniently, Kel returned around the same time. She came jogging up to the town square from the east — empty-handed, so Tony had to assume that she hadn't run into any problems with the delivery crew. She and Jean met up a few yards behind Tony's table.

"I did say _comfortably_ before dark," Jean said.

Kel looked up at the dimming sky. "I'm very comfortable."

Tony turned back just in time to see Natasha come striding down the aisle with Wilson in tow. She honed in on Jean like a laser-guided missile.

"I'm glad I caught the two of you together," Natasha said. "Sam tells me you've started talking about possible strategies for the return to Earth."

Alisha's head came up sharply, and a look of dismay crossed her face. It was an incongruous response to talk of home.

"That's true," Jean said. "Sam, I'm sorry, I know I still owe you an answer. It's been a hectic few days."

Their voices were low but audible, and Tony couldn't help but listen in. Peter also went quiet, and shifted awkwardly as he tried not to stare.

"How many do you want to hide?" Kel asked.

"Five of us are on wanted lists," said Natasha. "At last count, anyway."

Kel breathed out heavily. "This is a large number. Many more than I expected. Could be difficult."

"Of course," Natasha said. "The secondary escape route was only built for two."

Her tone sounded casual in exactly the way that a dozing tiger looked casual. Tony couldn't see if Jean or Kel stepped into the trap, but Alisha's expression of wide-eyed shock couldn't have been more clear. She caught Tony staring and quickly dropped her gaze.

"Wait, secondary _what_?" Sam asked. "Are you—" His voice lowered further. "Are you saying there's another way out of here?"

"Natasha is fishing," Jean said curtly. "The portal is the only way back to Earth. Whatever contingency plans we may have made, they only concern what happens next."

"Right," Sam said, a dubious note in his tone. "Gotta say, I've never been a big fan of the cryptic act. Can we drop the hints?"

There was a pause. Tony could imagine Jean and Kel eyeing each other, trying to come to a consensus.

"I'm sorry," Jean said. "I'm not ready to be more explicit just yet. But I gave you my word that I would see you all home safely, and I stand by that."

"I know you didn't ask for us to crash your party," said Sam. "This isn't your responsibility. If there's nothing you can do, we'll figure it out for ourselves."

"I gave my word," she said again. "Please, Sam. Trust me. Give us time."

"Well… time, at least, we've got."

"Thank you."

The conversation circle broke up, and the three eavesdroppers did their best to look innocent. Sam headed back toward the Avengers' table (as far away as possible from Tony's, as had become their mutual habit), and Natasha lagged a bit behind him.

Natasha had deliberately positioned that conversation where it would be overheard — that much was obvious. As for _why_ she'd done it, Tony could think of a few different reasons off the top of his head, some he resented considerably more than others. He wondered if Jean realized what had just happened.

Jean stopped dead at the other end of Tony's table, thereby answering that question. "Romanoff."

Natasha turned.

"You staged that scene to find out if Alisha knows what it is I'm keeping from you," Jean said. "And now you know that she does. So let me be clear: you want to keep working me? Take your best shot. But if you start harassing my people, you and I will have a problem."

Natasha's lips curled up just a tiny bit. "You have quite the protective streak, don't you?"

"Yes, I do."

She gave a quick nod. "Message received."

"Good."

Then she was gone, which left Jean and Kel still hovering in Tony's vicinity. And Tony could practically _feel_ Jean assembling some kind of damage control speech that would be delivered to him with great sincerity and warm brown eyes, and he decided that he was in no fucking mood.

"Now _that_ ," he said to Alisha, "was incredibly dramatic."

She gave a nervous giggle. "You're right, it was," she replied. "Way worse than punching Captain America."

"My point exactly."

Jean shot them both a sour look, which was at least a marginal improvement.

Alisha didn't seem to see it that way. "Sorry," she said promptly. "I didn't mean— and I should have been more careful once I realized you were talking about—"

"Not a single piece of that was your fault," Jean said. "If Natasha starts to pressure you in any way, please let me know and I'll deal with it."

"Sure, that's not at all terrifying." She gulped the last of her water and started gathering up her dishes. "Anyway, I think I'm done for the day. Unless you need me for anything?"

"No, by all means, get some more sleep," Jean said.

"Thanks. I'll see you guys at work tomorrow?"

"Sure thing," Tony said.

Alisha traded out and Kel traded in, sitting herself down next to Tony. Jean remained on her feet, both hands resting on the table.

"Tony, I'm getting myself a cup of coffee," she announced. "Do you want one?"

"Yeah, all right."

Once she was gone, Kel said to him, "It's my fault. I want to go back to Earth after this. I think there are things I can learn there. Ways I can be useful, maybe. But Jean thinks there are some people on your planet who would want to use me to learn about Brenith abilities, no matter if I allowed it or not. This would go badly for everyone. So, when I go back, it must be quiet. This was always the plan. How we do it is the part we don't want to talk about yet." She touched him lightly on the arm. "But Tony, I promise, Jean and I didn't lie to you, and the thing we know changes nothing about the three hundred days."

It was a sincerity ambush. Tony glared at her on principle, then took a mental step back and tried to assess the situation.

The most charitable reading of Natasha's stunt was that she'd been warning him that Jean was keeping secrets. (Secondary consequence, of which she was certainly aware: Tony had now been recruited to the effort to uncover the secret, and he was arguably in a better position to put pressure on Jean than she was.) And yes, withholding information had all the obvious negative associations, etc., etc.… but _possibly_  he could muster enough self-control to temper his response before he metaphorically blew the roof off the building.

Tony didn't think he had any other family members who'd been secretly murdered. That was the sort of card that could only be played once.

Realistically, Jean and Kel were delicately talking around some sort of plan to extricate Jean's people from the rest of the crowd once they all got back to Earth — a plan that might or might not stretch to accommodate five more fugitives. Low-key illegal but almost certainly harmless, and nothing to do with Tony one way or the other.

(Alisha's reactions had been a bit more pronounced than he would have expected, that being the case. But she was tired and under stress, and probably not accustomed to doing things like setting off a diversion to elude police, or whatever Jean had up her sleeve.)

Jean reappeared, and set her caffeinated bribe in front of him before taking a seat next to Peter.

"Thank you for the sketches," she said to Tony. "At least, I'm choosing to interpret them as suggestions rather than artfully constructed threats."

"That's what I was going for at the time," he said.

She smiled. "Are you going to ask?"

"I don't know. Asking seems like a good way to get my head taken off. I'm still recovering from yesterday."

Luckily, Peter had no such qualms. He looked quickly back and forth between Jean and Kel, then leaned in and lowered his voice. "You guys don't really have a secret way out of here, do you?"

"Peter, I would never force this group of people to stay here one second longer than was absolutely necessary," Jean said. "I certainly wouldn't make our survival contingent upon winning a large-scale conflict if there were any alternatives. As I said, the only way back to Earth is through the portal. Do you believe me?"

The kid looked down, chastened. "Yeah."

"Good," she said, "because unfounded and distorted rumors can be dangerous in a small community like this. I'd like your agreement not to discuss this with anyone else, even speculatively."

He nodded rapidly. "Sure, yeah. I didn't think about it like that. Sorry."

"No harm done."

Jean turned to Tony, and for a second he was afraid that she was going to make him sit through her version of the 'trust me, I'm not about to fuck you over' speech. But then, mercifully, she said, "Thank you also for including range estimates with the schematics. I assume that firing from an elevated position would increase the range in some calculable manner?"

"Sure, that's easy!" Peter chirped before Tony could respond. "If delta y is negative, then you just—"

"Short answer, yes," Tony interjected, who knew from experience that the top brass never wanted to see the math. "You give us the elevation, we'll give you your field of fire."

Jean did her 'I was a humanities major' blink a couple of times in Peter's direction. "Good," she said after a pause. "Clearly it will be critical for us to know the terrain that we'll be defending. Once we've got a map to work with, we can start designing our ground defenses and identifying the optimum placements for your catapults."

"I assume you'll be tapping Vision for an aerial survey?" Tony said.

Jean chuckled quietly. "He does solve certain problems, doesn't he? Yes, that's the plan, as soon as I can pull him off of escort duty. But that will have to wait until the beta site is established and we've got a safe transit corridor between the two camps. In the meantime, I'd like to get the bridge wired with explosives as soon as possible. Where are we on that project?"

Talk of priorities and tentative timelines lasted until the sun had gone down and the outdoor lights had been lit. Tony gave a bridge demolition update, taking into account their more potent explosive. He managed to refrain from pointing out that if Jean was in a hurry to blow things up, then she shouldn't kick her bomb guy out of his workshop. Peter, as the newly minted barrier expert, ran them through some rough estimates of how many disks it would take to extend the travel corridor another fifty miles, and how long it would take to harvest and place them all.

(Tony wasn't being facetious, either. The kid was sharp, that had never been in question, and if he could take on jobs that let him contribute while keeping him out of danger, all the better.)

And in and around the things being said were a number of things _not_ being said, like Jean's continued assurances that Tony was in the loop on anything that might impact him, and Tony's acceptance of the situation, at least for the moment, without prying further into whatever she was holding back.

Jean, ever the responsible one, broke them up for the night not long after sunset. Kel, ever the _nosy_ one, lingered behind so that she could quietly offer Tony something to help him sleep.

"You need to work on a little something called _mental boundaries_ ," he told her.

"Sorry," she said, not sounding it. "I'm an empath. It doesn't turn off."

He looked up reflexively in the direction of the Avengers' table, even though he'd seen Rogers leave a while back. "By the way, has anyone mentioned to Rogers that he stole your bedroom?"

"It's fine, I can sleep anywhere," she said, which Tony took to mean 'no'.

And she was still waiting on an answer. Lovely.

"I'm…" _Fine_ , Tony wanted to say, except she of all people wasn't going to swallow that. "I'm dealing with it," he said instead. "If it's still a problem tomorrow, maybe I'll swing by your office. But for now, let's just…" He made a shooing gesture.

"Your choice," she said, and shifted to look past his shoulder. "I'll go now. Natasha wants to try again."

Of course she did.

Once Kel was out of earshot, Tony turned around on the bench and found Natasha lurking by the admin building. "Gotta say, I'm not really feeling the truce tonight," he said.

She walked slowly forward. "I wanted you to know that they're hiding something."

"Well, who isn't these days?"

"Tony."

"Look, Jean doesn't want her name in the news, so she's got some kind of scam lined up for when we get back. Alisha's going to do her Jedi mind trick on some emergency responders. Whatever. Not everything has to be a sinister conspiracy."

"No," Natasha said firmly. "It's bigger than that."

"How do you know?"

"Instinct," she said. "Something about their story doesn't add up. It never has. Kel knows too much about this place. She had too much influence over the camp while it was operational. It feels _wrong_. Whatever they're hiding, it involves her, and it's on this side." She sighed. "Just… be careful, Tony. Please."

He crossed his arms. "I actually don't need to be sold on the hazards of trusting the wrong people."

Her gaze flicked down for a second, which was as much of a concession as Tony could hope to get. "As soon as I learn something definite," she said, "I'll let you know."

"Great. You do that."

Then she was gone. Tony groaned and leaned his head back. It was going to be another shitty night.

 


	25. Chapter 25

Vision rose into the air and zotted the jellyfish with his forehead beam… thing. It hit the ground in a puddle of charred leaves and goop.

"That's a jellyfish," Sam told his audience. "Probably the biggest pain in the ass you're going to run into out here. They travel through the tops of the trees, and climb down to the lower levels when there's prey nearby. If one catches your scent and starts chasing, you might hear it coming. But if it's already lying in wait, you'd better hope you notice the curtain of strands in time, because if you don't, you're in pieces getting digested."

"How do you kill them?" Gabriela asked.

"Short of charbroiling them? You don't. They really are like jellyfish — not much in the way of brains or vital organs. Avoid 'em as best you can, and if one is on your six, kill something and leave it behind, so it has an easier meal than you."

It was the afternoon of the second day of the mission, and Sam thought he had a pretty good handle on his crew. He had a cop, an Army reservist, a recently discharged Airman, two civilians with hunting backgrounds, an amateur martial artist, and a youngish guy who wasn't much of a talker. He also had two of the Oregon Six, and two women who'd been entrusted with small test packets of grain seeds. He had two flashy horses with wings, heavily laden with rations and gear. He had his spear, because he was the guy with a spear now. And he had Vision.

It had been less than a month since the rescue team had first hiked down out of these hills, and Sam recognized various landmarks as they backtracked. Past the suspension bridge, the road shrank down to a footpath, and even that had all but vanished by the previous evening. The large group and particularly the horses moved slowly across the uneven terrain. Sam estimated that they would reach the valley full of snakes within the hour, and would be in the vicinity of the New York portal landing site around noon on the fourth day.

The weather had been overcast and damp ever since they'd left, with heavy rain the previous night and probably more of the same to come. It had been as good an excuse as any to give everyone a crash course in constructing temporary shelters.

The last time Sam had been out this way, he'd been traveling in the wake of Steve, Natasha, and seventy-five Minotaurs. In retrospect, the oversized escort and the incessant wide patrols made perfect sense: they'd been needed to scare off or clear away the forest's many and varied unfriendlies. His current team was more modest in size, but was doing at least a decent job of warding off danger. With the exception of the jellyfish, who didn't seem to care about anything except the possibility of a hot meal, the convoy had so far managed to avoid any serious trouble.

As predicted, they crested a small rise and caught sight of Snake Valley.

"You remember this place, right?" Sam said to Vision.

"Yes." He didn't narrow his eyes, like a human might have — he refocused his pupils like a telescope. "There is a significant population of the limbless mammal residing in the undergrowth. Since we don't know whether the species is venomous—"

"I'm thinking we go around," Sam said.

"Yes, I concur."

They swung north. The landscape took an abrupt turn for the steep and rocky, and they found themselves faced with a narrow ridge that the two horses couldn't manage. They had to veer off-course even further, and the detour brought them to the edge of a bare stretch of rock. There were no trees here. The terrain was riddled with caves and fissures.

In other words, there were all sorts of places where something big and nasty could make a nest.

Vision came up beside him. "I can hear several large bodies moving among the rocks ahead of us. I think it best if—"

"Go back," said Pavel, the curly-haired guy who never talked. "Now."

Yeah, all right.

Without taking his eyes off the rocks in front of him, Sam raised his voice and said, "Everyone, let's back it up and—"

But he couldn't even get the sentence out before they sprang up out of the rocks in every direction — the giant komodo dragons. If three constituted a family unit, this was a goddamned clan reunion. And Sam and his team were the buffet.

"Noncombatants, stay behind us!" Sam shouted. "Vision, the grey patchy ones spit venom — those are yours. Combat units, team up against the big bruisers with the spikes."

He and Vision weren't the only ones who were armed. Frank had brought one of the Minotaurs' oversized broadswords, while the rest of Teams One and Two had their pickaxes from the mine. Sam had a scant second to hope that they'd all had some kind of practice using them in combat before the first wave of dragons was on them.

Brilliant bursts of red energy flashed through the air and the acrid scent of charred meat and scales hit his nostrils. Vision took down most of the leading edge before they got within spitting distance, but there were dozens more coming. As Vision focused on the venom-spitters, one of the plated, spiky tank types came barrelling in toward the rest of the convoy. Sam formed up with Team One and braced to meet it.

The team spread out to surround the target like it was something they'd done before. Gabriela took a blow with its tail spikes on the head of her pickaxe and knocked it harmlessly back. Pavel stood poised to do the same from the other side. The dragon scuttled toward Frank, teeth bared, but he stepped off the line of attack and fended it off with a wild swing of his sword.

For those who didn't have the capacity to short-circuit a creature's nervous system with a touch, the only thing left was to bash its brains in. Sam swung his staff (feet like _this_ , shoulders like _that_ ) and cracked the monster on the skull, then reversed direction and sliced with the blade.

He'd been aiming for the throat, but the monster recoiled and he only managed a glancing blow off its muzzle. It backpedaled, dodged another swipe of the sword, and tried to go after Gabriela, but the team shifted in sync. Frank slashed again and managed to clip it across one eye. It jerked away sharply and ran right into another hard crack from the staff. This time it staggered a little. Another strike, a deeper cut from the sword, and finally Sam got a clear shot and lunged, burying the blade in its throat.

Deep red blood gushed from the wound. The monster wobbled on its six legs and collapsed.

No time to celebrate. Sam did a quick survey of the battlefield. The noncombatants were still safe. Team Two had another tank-dragon between them. They were uninjured, but hadn't made much headway. He was on the verge of ordering some of his folks to assist when Vision, now airborne, swooped by and fired a beam into their target. It went down instantly with a smoking hole in its back.

What remained of the komodo clan was getting the hint that they were on the losing side. All the nearby dragons were corpses, not targets. A couple opportunists were starting to snack on their fallen brethren.

From the corner of his eye, a twitch of motion. Sam spun to see the slippery little green one dashing in, mouth poised to take a chunk out of his leg. He was still swinging his spear into position when Gabriela drove the point of her pickaxe into the creature's skull.

"Thanks," he said.

"No problem."

_Now_ there was nothing moving in the convoy's immediate vicinity.

Pavel, who had somehow slipped past him, stepped out from behind the horses. "Clear behind," he said.

"Yeah, let's get the hell out of here," Sam said. "Back the way we came. Stay alert, stay close, and move fast. Vision—"

"I will ensure that none pursue us."

They retreated all the way back along the ill-conceived detour, and put some distance between themselves and Snake Valley for good measure. The sun was getting low in the sky, and Sam had a feeling that they weren't going to make any more forward progress that day.

He called a halt. Not long after, Vision landed beside him. The gem on his forehead was still glowing.

"Pretty sure you can stand that thing down," Sam said.

"My apologies," Vision replied, and the glow faded immediately. "What remains of the group has retreated into the rocks. They are… very well fed, and unlikely to leave the area."

"Good. If this place is secure, I'm thinking we could do worse for tonight's campsite. You mind taking a look around for any more surprises?"

"Of course," he said, and disappeared into the trees.

Sam made his own perimeter sweep — Vision could cover far more ground, but it never hurt to double-check — and found no signs of hostiles. When he was confident that they wouldn't have to bolt again in the near future, he announced to the rest of the convoy, "Take a load off, folks. We're going to rest here awhile. Is everyone all right? Anyone hurt?"

"He is," Karen the gardener said with a gesture toward Pavel.

Sam hurried over, and discovered that the kid had acid splashed across his shoulder and arm.

"When did this happen?"

"During the fight."

Sam put two and two together, and came up with a massive lapse on his part. "One of the venom-spitters got behind us, didn't it."

Pavel gave a one-shouldered shrug. "Not for long."

_Damn, son_.

Vision reemerged, and gave Sam a nod: they were clear.

"Nice work covering our backs," Sam said to Pavel, "but next time, speak up sooner, all right? Now let's get those burns taken care of."

Kel had sent them with medical supplies, including more of that salve she used to neutralize the acid. Sam carefully cleaned the wounds, treated them with an analgesic, and bandaged them up. He had a few antibiotics at his disposal, but with any luck it wouldn't come to that.

"I can't insta-heal you like Kel or Aaron could, so we're gonna have to keep an eye on this," he warned.

Pavel shrugged again and pulled his shirt back down. "Fine."

The group was settling in for supper. Sam wanted to check in with everyone, particularly the noncombatants, but it could wait until they'd all unwound a little more.

For the moment, he circled back to where Vision was standing watch. Even Kel and all her talents couldn't have gotten them out of that mess. (Admittedly, she wouldn't have walked into the dragons' territory in the first place, but the basic point remained.) It merited acknowledgment.

"Good job back there," he said.

"And you, also," Vision said.

Sam scoffed. "Yeah, I got one, left you the other twenty."

"Twenty-five, in fact."

Sam looked at him sharply, and caught the slight smile on his face. "All right, I see how it is," he said. "Guess we're lucky you're on our side this time."

"As I have said from the beginning, my only goal is to protect the abductees from harm and return them safely to Earth." Vision looked at him, somber now. "Just as my goal on Earth was to protect innocent people from the hazards of large-scale, unregulated conflict. Is my 'side' so very different from yours?"

Damn. Sam had to look away, shamed. "No, not so much. At least, it shouldn't have been. There are… a whole lot of things I wish had turned out differently." He was thinking, in particular, about the second time in his life he'd had to watch a man fall out of the sky.

Maybe Vision was, too. "As do I," he said.

Sam turned slightly to look over the campsite. People were resting, eating, chatting quietly. Doing their best in circumstances that they should have never had to face. "We'll get these folks home," he said. "And after that… maybe we can't fix all our mistakes, but for some of them, I hope we get the chance to try."

 

* * *

 

Natasha watched carefully as Kel wiped down Clint's calf for the final time. It had been three weeks since his injury, but now, to all appearances, it could have happened ten years ago. The region where skin, tendon and muscle had been excised clear down to the bone was now marked only by a faint oval scar. Layer by layer, Kel and Aaron had collaboratively grown it all back. The leg was whole again.

Back on Earth, Clint would have lost the foot and been lucky to keep the knee. After the necrotic tissue had been removed from his calf, there hadn't been nearly enough left over to maintain blood flow to the foot. The two healers had saved it through aggressive empathic intervention and some very interesting alien drugs.

"Turn over," Kel said, and Clint shifted from his stomach to his back. "How does it feel?"

"Don't you know that already?" Clint asked. "I thought that was your whole thing."

"Yes," she said, "but I was told it is impolite for me to tell a patient how he feels instead of the other way. So — how does it feel?"

Clint regarded his foot critically. "You know how when your foot goes to sleep, and you stand on it anyway, it feels like it belongs to someone else? It feels exactly like that, except it's not asleep."

"This doesn't surprise," Kel said. "There were many nerves that had to be replaced. You never used these ones before. You will have to learn to walk again. But the brain adapts. With work, it will become normal."

Kel tested various pulse points in Clint's foot and lower leg, and checked capillary refill in the toes. Then, with Natasha supplying a second hand as needed, she slowly manipulated the ankle in different directions. Clint's breathing remained steady and relaxed.

"Good," Kel said. "Now you try. Flex?"

She walked him through the same set of stretches: flex, point, circle left, circle right. The foot seemed to be obeying instructions.

"How is it?" Kel asked again.

"Tight."

"Yes. It will get better. But no pain?"

He shook his head. "Where do I stand on… standing?"

In response, Kel came up beside him and offered her hand. Clint swung his legs over the edge of the exam table, took her hand and Natasha's, and cautiously slid down to the floor.

"This will be tender," Kel warned. "For now, just a few steps."

The transfer of balance happened slowly and carefully, from his toes through the sole of his foot until his heel was on the floor. He shifted slowly to the side, and sucked in a breath.

"Okay, feeling _that_."

His hand tightened around Natasha's as he carried through the motion and let the injured leg take all his weight long enough to step forward.

"Very good," Kel murmured. "And again."

She and Natasha came with him as Clint took another cautious step, and another, and another, until they reached the counter on the opposite side of the room.

"Enough for now," Kel said. "It will get easier, even as soon as tomorrow."

"I got time," Clint said. "By the way, I've said thanks for this, right? Because… y'know, thanks for this."

"It was mostly Aaron," Kel said. "I was just the power source."

Whereas when Aaron was the one working solo, he tended to accord most of the credit to Kel.

"Either of you, both of you — whatever," Clint said. "I'm grateful. I mean, between losing the foot and _not_ losing the foot… well, I guess you'd know something about that."

Luckily, Kel wasn't touchy about her missing hand. "Yes, I'm glad it went better for you," she said. "For now, continue to come here morning and evening, like you did before. Aaron or I will check that everything heals correctly, and you can work up to more steps. If there are any unusual sensations — numbness, pins and needles, change in temperature — come to see one of us right away. Much better to confirm that it's fine than to ignore a problem."

"Gotcha."

She got him set up on his crutches again, and he and Natasha headed out.

"So," Clint said, "you spot any clues to her hidden agenda in how she stretched out my ankle?"

All Natasha had to do was look at him.

"Yeah, all right," he conceded with a sigh. "An alien from a race that just happens to have a preexisting business relationship with the scorpions, who just happens to be half-human, is so desperate for new employment opportunities that she travels to one new planet for the purpose of throwing herself through an interdimensional portal to another new planet, where she is willing to strand herself permanently in exchange for the privilege of working as a medic in a labor camp. If I was a giant scorpion, I'd have some trouble with that story."

"Exactly."

"So either she told it a hell of a lot better, or something else happened. Fine, I'm onboard. But if she's planning some kind of double-cross, it's gotta be the most inefficient scam ever run."

"I don't think she means us any harm," said Natasha, "but I do think that whatever she's hiding is a lot more important than she and Jean are letting on. Besides, Jean told me to take my best shot. I'd hate to disappoint."

"Seriously, she said that?" Clint gave a low whistle. "Boss-Lady's got nerve."

"Once you've got your mobility back, and you and Jean have your inevitable grudge match, she's going to make you pay for every time you've called her 'Boss-Lady'."

"Yeah, and when you inevitably step in to defend my honor and restore my good name, she's going to make _you_ pay for every time you've gone poking into her business."

"If she can."

"If she can," Clint agreed. "If you're really all in on this, then it's obvious who her team's weak links are. You going after the bombmaker, or the guy who saved my foot?"

They reached the rows of tables and took a seat in what had become the Avengers' customary spot. It was after the dinner hour and the evening briefing. Jean wasn't in sight; Natasha guessed that she was back in her office. Steve had also retired already. No one else was close enough to overhear them.

Natasha had to admit, she was curious to see exactly what Jean would do if she defied her warning and started pressuring her team. The battle of wills could be… entertaining. But she also recognized that the upcoming war would require all of them to work together smoothly, and adding more grudges into an already fractious mix would be putting lives in danger.

"For now, the civilians are restricted to passive surveillance," she said. "My best angle is Kel herself. It's hard to lie in a foreign language. She's already dropped a few hints. There's an inconsistency in her story somewhere, and I just have to get her talking long enough to find it."

"Yeah." Clint swung his foot up onto the bench beside him, and ran through the quick set of stretches again: flex, point, circle, circle. As signals went, it wasn't exactly subtle.

"I'm glad you got your leg back," she told him. "I'm grateful to her, too. But you know I can't let this go."

"Yeah, I know," Clint said. "Just tread lightly, okay?"

"You know I will."

 

* * *

 

Steve shut the door to his little cabin and started on his daily circuit around the camp. He'd just gotten to the edge of the forest when Jean appeared from around the corner of the infirmary.

"May I walk with you?" she asked.

"Come to make sure I don't assault anyone?" Steve inquired.

"No," Jean said, calm and unflinching. "Only to check in. If you prefer to be alone, I won't intrude."

His face grew hot. She hadn't deserved that. "Sorry," he said. "I'm… yes, please join me."

She fell in beside him, and they set out together.

"We have a long road ahead of us, Steve," Jean said. "I'd rather we not be at loggerheads."

"So would I," he said. "I… haven't exactly been at my best these past few weeks."

"Understandably."

In truth, he had no idea what his best was supposed to be anymore, but certainly he was falling short of it. Exhaustion made him snappish; what little progress he'd made in his recovery had come at a snail's pace, and his frustration grew each day. But he had to try and do better.

They walked in silence for a stretch, around the southern border of the camp toward the livestock. Two of the horses were with Sam and his survey team, while the third and the pair of oxen were still tethered to trees.

"I was somewhat preoccupied with other matters during the UN bombing and its aftermath," Jean said, out of the blue. "Plus, from my point of view, those events took place almost two years ago. I don't have all the details at my disposal. However, as the story broke, I recall thinking that the Winter Soldier had operated for fifty years in such secrecy that his very existence was unconfirmed. After the fall of SHIELD, he vanished completely in spite of what I can only assume were some highly motivated people searching for him. Then, after years of silence, on the eve of his grand return to the assassination scene, _that's_ when he overlooks a security camera?" She pursed her lips critically. "At the time, I found the story less than persuasive."

Steve knew he was being rude, but he couldn't help but stare. This was the absolute last thing he'd expected her to bring up.

"Extrapolating from there, I also recall thinking that if I were in Barnes' position — framed for a crime that I hadn't committed, that no one would ever believe that I hadn't committed, facing a second lifetime of imprisonment when I had just barely survived the first — it would at least cross my mind not to let myself be taken alive. I think that option would have to be on the table." She turned to meet Steve's eyes. "In fact, it would probably be the only option on the table. Unless it so happened that the one person in the world that I might be able to trust showed up to stand with me."

Steve found his eyes stinging. He had to look away and focus on putting one foot in front of the other for several paces.

"I wanted so badly to believe he was innocent," he finally said. "But I couldn't be certain. If someone else — some Hydra remnant — had gotten control of him again… And if he needed to be brought in, it was my responsibility."

"Yes," Jean said. "I would have done the same."

The salvo hadn't just struck in an unprotected quarter, it had come from an angle he would have never anticipated.

(Maybe the move had been a little calculated. Like if he searched her office, he would find the piece of paper where she'd brainstormed points of common ground with him. But it could be calculated while still falling short of manipulative, and Steve felt that her words had been sincere.)

He had no idea how to reply, but luckily Jean didn't seem to expect an answer. They walked side by side without speaking, past the eastern road and behind Tony's lab and the processing plant, until they began to approach the mine.

Unusually, there was a group of people up ahead. Most of them stood watching while two of their number chopped through the trunk of a tree on the camp border. Jean made a small warning gesture — not that Steve had any desire to have a tree fall on his head in his present condition — and both of them drew to a halt a safe distance from the activity.

Wanda was there, standing a bit apart from the rest of the group. The trunk had been almost entirely chopped through, and the tree was beginning to waver. The crew with the axes swung a few more well-placed blows, then stepped back hastily. Amidst warning cries, the tree began to fall.

Wanda's hands came up, and red light flared around the falling trunk. It slowed, buoyed by the cushion of magic, and floated through the air away from the surrounding trees before settling gently to the ground.

"Sweet!" called a young man whom Steve took to be the foreman. "As we strip the branches, can you lift them clear and stack them?"

"Of course," Wanda said.

"Awesome! Okay, sawing teams, you guys are a go." The foreman caught sight of Jean and Steve, and headed their way at a brisk jog. "Hey!" he said to her, then turned to Steve and added, "Holy crap. I mean — sorry! I just mean, holy _crap_."

"Steve, this is Mike of the Oregon Six," Jean said. "Mike, Steve Rogers."

Mike's hand came up beside his face like he wasn't sure if he was supposed to salute. Steve got that one a lot.

"Hi there," he said, and smiled politely.

"Hi, uh, Captain America. Rogers. Captain Rogers."

"How are things progressing?" Jean prompted.

Luckily, that snapped him out of it. "So… okay, so what we have here is a very nice hardwood, very durable, one of the strongest they've got, at least among the species that border us. Kerry is working on some schematics for wagons, you know, for hauling heavy loads? Based on the little wagons they already use to take ore to processing, but obviously scaled up. I figure we'll run them by Iron Man before we start building, since… well, Iron Man. But she's good at designing stuff — she says she read the _Little House On The Prairie_ books a bunch of times when she was a kid, so. And Katie and Kerry are trying out some different woods for shaping into wagon wheels, and also for making yokes, so we'll get that sorted out, too."

"Excellent," Jean said. "Sounds like you have things well in hand."

"Yeah, it's going good. And Wanda's a huge boost to our lifting power — really moving things along. Literally."

"Don't let me keep you, then."

"Right. Good to meet you, Captain." Mike tossed Steve another pseudo-salute and jogged back to his team.

The two of them resumed their walk, making a careful detour around the logging area. Steve nodded to Wanda as he passed. It was good to see that she was finding some acceptance among the camp population.

They passed the path to the north that Steve knew led to the mine. He was (ridiculously) beginning to feel the strain in his legs, but he knew from experience that he would be able to push through it to finish the lap. Jean showed no sign of impatience, even though she had to find the pace painfully slow.

Steve knew he needed to say something. This entire walk was a gesture on her part — an olive branch — and it didn't deserve to pass by without response.

"People here respect you," he said at last.

"We've been through a lot together," Jean replied.

She said it neutrally, but Steve couldn't help but feel rebuked. Of course she and the other abductees had been through a lot together: most of them had been here for over twenty months now. As contrasted with Steve and his people, who'd just barely arrived and hadn't exactly made a strong showing of themselves.

And it was their fault — _Steve's_ fault — that all of Jean's plans had ultimately come to nothing. Steve still had no idea how they were going to survive the upcoming war ( _five months, my God, how can we possibly buy that much time?_ ). But she was leading the camp into it anyway, carrying them behind her on the strength of her reputation and rock-solid confidence. All of them, civilians and her own team alike, followed her. ( _Tony_ followed her, and there was a feat that Steve had only sporadically managed.)

In the first few days after he'd woken up, Steve had written off Jean's confidence as arrogance combined with ignorance. But maybe that did her a disservice.

Steve opened his mouth, and what came out was, "I still don't think you should have rescued me."

Jean tilted her head, accepting the statement.

"But you did," he continued, "and it occurs to me that I haven't been all that appreciative."

"You've had more than enough of your own problems to deal with," Jean said. "I regret that I couldn't move quickly enough to prevent the damage that was done to you."

"You're not responsible for this," Steve said, gesturing toward himself.

"There's an argument to be made that I'm responsible for everything that happens on this side of the portal." She gave a quick huff of laughter. "I thought I had everything under control, but I confess, I never saw you coming."

There was a lengthy list of points and counterpoints to be made about who she should have told and why she didn't — an argument that was more than a little familiar, come to think of it. And none of it was relevant now. What was done, was done.

"I'm sure you didn't make the choice lightly," Steve said instead, "but a months-long war is going to be worse than you can imagine."

"Yes. Kel has warned me similarly." She paused, just noticeably. "My first kill was considerably worse than I'd imagined. I would hardly expect the trend to reverse itself."

Steve recognized the comment for what it was — a small gesture of trust. "I know you've been working on battle plans," he said. "I'd be interested in hearing more about them. If you've got some time."

She smiled. "Of course I do."

 

* * *

 

It took Tony several days to… not work up the nerve. Get into the correct mindset.

Well, no. Back up a bit. A few days earlier, Tony found himself lying on his cot, staring up at the stultifyingly boring wood ceiling of the dormitory and contemplating a third consecutive night without sleep. He was exhausted — eyes burning, head pounding, nerves twanging — and his brain simply would not shut off. He would have far rather stayed up to work, but Jean and Alisha both got twitchy about people being in the lab alone, plus he didn't want to worry the kid, so… that left only this. Lying awake, miserable, hating everything, not sleeping.

After maybe an hour, the thought suddenly came to him that Kel might take it into her head to do something egregious like check up on him, and obviously _that_ was a turn of events that couldn't be borne. So he had no other options, really. Tony rolled out of bed as quietly as he could and tiptoed across the floor, and once he was outside, he indulged himself in a petulant stomp all the way across camp to the infirmary.

She was there waiting for him, because of course she was. Nosy little brat.

Tony crossed his arms and glowered. Kel correctly interpreted this to mean, _It turns out I could use some help with that sleep issue after all._ With a bare minimum of fuss and just the tiniest glint of amusement in her eyes, she set a pocket-sized wooden box down on the counter beside him. Inside were half a dozen narrow, crinkled leaves.

"One at a time," she said. "Put it between your teeth and chew slowly. It will help."

He muttered some approximation to a thank-you and took the box back to his cot. In taste and texture, the leaf turned out to be a close cousin to two-day-old lettuce. He bit down on the thing as instructed, and lay back and closed his eyes.

…And woke up the next morning feeling more refreshed than he had in days.

So that bit of business obviously kicked off a whole avoidance cycle. Tony focused on his work with Alisha and Peter, and scrupulously avoided all other interactions. They had plenty to do: on top of continuing to manufacture their souped-up version of TNT, they also needed to design, build and test a variety of casings and trigger mechanisms. Busy, busy, busy.

But after a couple of days in which the other shoe didn't drop, there came a morning when Tony allowed a combination of curiosity and restlessness to drive him away from breakfast early.

Kel and Jean's old sparring space had been overtaken by livestock, and they'd relocated to a different patch of grass behind the showers. Tony preferred this configuration, since it was out of sight.

He had no idea why he was doing this — or maybe he had too many ideas why, and none of them quite fit. Certainly, it had something to do with seeing what Jean was made of, since after all she was proposing to lead them into combat. (And on that note, even if Rogers didn't get the serum back, he would still be fit by the time the war kicked off. It was not at all clear to Tony whether anyone had explained to him that he wasn't going to be in charge of this one.)

Yeah, that was as good a motivation as any: finding out what kinds of combat skills she brought to the table. Kel's credentials were above reproach, as he'd learned from months of crossing pickaxes with her. But Jean hadn't participated in those training sessions, only watched.

And maybe part of it was about seeing what _he_ was made of, too — not that his skills outside the armor were a major source of insecurity these days. He was no Romanoff, granted, but he could handle himself. Still, it could be instructive to test himself against a fresh opponent.

Perfectly valid reasons. Surely enough to answer the question. And if some wistful corner of his brain wanted to point out that he'd never actually been invited to a team sparring session before, well, he was more than capable of ignoring it until it went away.

At any rate, he'd met the two of them at their new training site and said, "I was wondering if that invitation was still open."

It had been. But it turned out that Jean's first order of business was to exact her revenge for that 'safe, sane, consensual' crack, because he'd been there for what felt like several years now, and she was still goddamned _negotiating the scene_.

No contact hard enough to bruise. No targeting the throat. No damaging joints. No kicking Tony in the balls (okay, he did appreciate that one). A tapout was to be instantly respected.

"Personally," she continued, "I'm comfortable with glancing contact to the face, but it would be very reasonable if—"

"No, by all means," Tony said desperately, "let us punch each other in the face. It beats _dying of old age_."

"As you prefer. And remember, no one has anything to prove here. This is just a friendly exchange of—"

"Contusions?" he suggested.

" _Ideas_ ," Jean said severely.

"Right, that's what I meant to say."

They squared off. And in spite of (or maybe because of) the exhaustive list of rules, Tony found himself not at all sure of what he was supposed to be doing. They had no protective gear, and while they certainly weren't trying to hurt each other, they were about to make some kind of approximation to it, and—

Jean threw a jab, nice and light, and even if Tony's brain was turned over, his body knew what to do. A quick block sent her fist glancing to the side. He stepped forward with his counterstrike, and she stepped back as she slapped it away, and then they were dancing.

And it was fine for, like, three seconds. But then, because this was how much his life sucked sometimes, she broke through his guard and tagged him lightly on the cheekbone — well within the rules, not nearly hard enough to bruise or even rock his head back — and the world seemed to short out and—

_head slamming into concrete with every blow of the shield, dizzy and sick, vision sparking, ears ringing—_

_a sudden blast of freezing cold and blinding light as the faceplate was ripped away—_

_the edge of the shield poised above him and his entire life contracting to that single moment before—_

—and when things snapped back into focus, he found Kel braced against him with all her might, holding him back from putting his fist through Jean's face.

"It's all right," Kel murmured in his ear. "You're safe, Tony. It's over."

He gasped and reeled backward — Kel let him go immediately — and the disorientation swiftly evaporated, leaving only humiliation behind.

Jean was watching Kel carefully, which was a pretty fucking transparent cover for watching _him_ carefully.

"It's all right," Kel said again. "Are you here, Tony?"

He managed to give her a nod, and squeezed his hands to his temples. "What the _fuck_."

"Step away. Take ten slow breaths. Come back when you're ready."

But he couldn't do that, he couldn't possibly yield more ground until… all right, he didn't know what other options he had except possibly dying of embarrassment, but he still shook his head.

"It happens," Jean added. "It's fine. You should probably do what she says — otherwise she'll just keep saying it."

He shook his head again, pointless denial of he wasn't even sure what. "I swear, I was getting this shit under control," he said, only mildly stretching the truth. "And now suddenly it's a train wreck. It's like someone _did_ this to me."

"Yes," Kel said.

He rounded on her. "Elaborate. _Now_."

"When a life is in danger, the brain focuses only on those things it needs to survive," she said. "Before, you were a prisoner. You had to behave a certain way, make secret plans, be careful all the time. Already a lot to handle. Now that we control the camp, there's a little more safety. A little more space. The brain can acknowledge other problems. So — yes, in a way, we did this to you."

Wordless, Tony turned accusing eyes on Jean.

"Annoying, isn't it, when she's insightful," Jean said. "I have asked her to stop."

Kel said again, "Step away, take—"

"Yeah, yeah, I got it the first time."

Tony stepped. He breathed. He began to calm down.

When his heart was no longer racing, he took some solace in the fact that this experience could not possibly get any worse, and sidled back over to the group.

Kel and Jean were in the midst of a grappling drill. Given that Jean had Kel beat by forty pounds, eight inches and a hand, it should have been a one-sided battle and it really, really wasn't. Kel slipped a hold, fired a knee hard into Jean's gut, then found a textbook piece of leverage and sent her crashing to the ground.

Kel gave her a hand up, then gestured in Tony's direction, and he was back to being the center of attention.

"Obviously, I won't touch your face again," Jean said.

This time he really was going to spontaneously catch fire out of pure humiliation. "I would have… if I'd known…"

"Of course," she said. "Sometimes these things are unpredictable. But now that we know, I won't touch your face again. And while the subject is reopened, are there any other restrictions you can think of that might be prudent?"

The topic of Places We Don't Touch Each Other had come up earlier, and Tony had blown it off. But talking about it was maybe marginally better than enduring another flash.

He placed his hand over the center of his chest. "Direct contact here might…"

"Not a problem," she said immediately, and Kel nodded as well.

And that, apparently, was it. Like… new parameters accepted, no debate required. He felt like the ground had been tipped a couple degrees off kilter.

"Do you want to go again?" Jean asked.

In spite of everything? Yeah. He did.

The whole thing was stiff and awkward at first. They were each being so careful with the other that they were barely tapping at each other's guards. Tony fell for a feint and left himself open to a light touch on the ribs. He nodded acknowledgment, reset, and a couple of rounds later got lucky with a clean shot at her jaw, which he pulled just short of contact. Things like that.

But then some mutual frequency seemed to click, and they both started to loosen up. A little more speed, a little more power, a wider range of techniques. Jean had a bit of reach on him. She liked to grab and try to either trap him or throw him off balance. But Tony was faster than people expected him to be, and he knew a thing or two about finding leverage against a larger opponent.

There was no question that Jean had more training than he did. She won more rounds than she lost. But when the stars aligned and Tony dropped into a sweep that took her legs out from under her? That was fucking sweet.

And Jean rewarded him for it with a brilliant smile. "Very nice."

Then Kel stepped in and started picking on his form. Hundreds of hard landings had left his knees and hips with some personality quirks. They played around with range of motion (she asked before she touched) until landing on a minor adjustment that improved his speed and power considerably.

From there, they segued into other kinds of takedowns. All three of them started to collaborate, trading partners and sharing tips, playing around with different scenarios, fine-tuning each other's technique, just like… well, a friendly exchange of ideas.

The session lasted less than an hour. By the end of it, Tony's muscles were burning and he needed another shower (how the hell Jean went from this to a full shift in the mine most days, he had no fucking clue). And he felt fantastic.

Kel and Jean exchanged what had to be Kel's version of a handshake: they faced each other with left fists raised before their chests, and bumped the backs of their wrists together. Tony wondered if he merited the same gesture, and it turned out that he did.

"It was good today," Kel said to both of them. "I have to meet someone at the infirmary now, but I'll see you both later."

"That was fun," Jean said once Kel was gone. "Please join us as often as you like."

And… it had been fun, at that. "Yeah, maybe I will," Tony said. "This was not your worst idea."

She grinned. "I can hardly be expected to pass that up. What, in your view, _was_ my worst idea?"

"Well, I don't have the complete history, of course, but using yourself as a guinea pig for a previously untested gas mask has to rank up there."

"It did, however, work."

"I've done plenty of reckless shit that worked. People keep telling me it's no excuse."

Jean smiled at that, too, but then the mood began to shift. "Tony, I don't want to pry into private matters—"

Tony folded his arms. "She said, holding a crowbar."

"I just wanted to ask — and I realize our present circumstances make this uniquely difficult — are you finding some manner of support for the things you're dealing with?"

He felt the defensiveness rise up. Breathed through it. Let it go. "Kel and I have… conversed," he said. (One time; the thing a few nights ago didn't count. But it wasn't a lie.)

Jean nodded. "Good, I'm glad."

"That was it?"

"That was it. Wasn't so bad, now, was it?"

He tried to scowl, he really did. "So every time I'm an asshole to you, you're going to come back and do something considerate to make sure I feel like shit about it?"

"It's a strategy I'm willing to explore," she said. "Also, I seem to recall us tentatively agreeing that, on occasion, we talk about things. If you ever need a friendly ear…"

Again, Tony bit back on the impulse to say something dismissive, and instead managed to nod like a reasonable person. "Understood." At which point he was fairly desperate for a new topic, and as luck would have it, he had one in mind. "On a completely separate subject, when the actual conflict portion of this ten-month campaign kicks off, I'm assuming that you plan to remain in charge, right?"

"Yes, I do," Jean said.

"You run that by Rogers yet?"

"We've conversed," she said wryly. "Perhaps I haven't yet been as explicit as I should be."

That was pretty much what Tony had figured. "The thing is, serum or not, the guy's gotten pretty used to being the boss. I'd recommend you sort out the chain of command sooner rather than later."

"Fair point," she said. "You're right, avoiding the issue does none of us any favors. While we're on the subject, what do you think of the idea?"

"What, of you as a general?" He'd thought about it, of course. "You're not a soldier, right?"

"No."

"And you're not SHIELD, you told me that once."

"True."

"Another agency? FBI? CIA? NSA? EPA?"

She couldn't restrain a hint of a smile. "No, I don't work for the government in any capacity."

"In that case," Tony said, "since you bring it up and all… on paper, you've got approximately zero qualifications for this job. A person might hypothetically be within their rights to ask just who the hell you think you are."

Jean nodded; a fair hit. "My particular skill, ever since I was younger and much more reckless than this, is maximizing my resources. I can't fully explain it — sometimes it's a matter of instinct — but I _know_ that we have everything we need to survive this conflict. I can feel it. I may not be a soldier, but I understand the enemy's objective, and ours, and I have solid information on each side's capabilities — the most complete, I would argue, out of anyone here. I can make this work." She took a deliberate step toward him, placing them within arm's reach of each other. "Most importantly," she said, "I have people around me whose skills I trust, whose judgment I trust, and whom I trust to tell me when I make a mistake. That's who I am, Tony."

She was… well, the topic of Jean's weaponized sincerity had already been covered. "Couple of things come to mind," Tony said. "First, I am intrigued — almost enthralled — by the notion of a young, reckless version of you."

"She could be amusing."

"I can only imagine. Second, I've heard a lot of people expend a lot of words on not saying anything, and I'm not _completely_ convinced that you said anything just now. And third," he added before she could respond, "you've gotten the job done so far. I'm willing to stick around and see how it ends."

Jean was usually the one who reached out to him — a touch on the back, a hand on the shoulder — but if they were having a moment or whatever (god, he was getting maudlin in his old age), it seemed within bounds for him to clasp her arm for a second. So he did, and she covered his hand with hers.

"It's your show," he said. "Has been from the beginning. I'm still with you."

"That means a lot," Jean said softly. "Thank you."

Lordy, they were both getting soggy-eyed. Enough. "Okay, I'll come to more of these training sessions," Tony said (somehow not extricating his hand yet), "but only on the condition that they don't all end like this."

Impishly, she said, "You started it."

Well, _that_ completely unfair and uncalled for remark obviously led to a playful scuffle that left Tony flat on his back and giggling like a schoolboy. Yeah — definitely not her worst idea.

 

* * *

 

The survey team had climbed higher, to the point where the foothills were on the verge of becoming mountains. The wind blew a little colder up here, and the terrain became steeper and more inclined to jagged edges. But the trees also began to thin out, leaving clear sightlines across the hills below, stretching all the way to the ravine.

The site Sam was looking at was a sheltered patch of flat ground amidst the rocks. It was smaller than the labor camp, but not so much that they'd be cheek by jowl. To the west, it was backed by a ridge about thirty feet tall, which was only the first in a quick succession of rising peaks that led up into the mountain range proper. Not the sort of terrain anyone would want to bring an army across.

To the east, the little plateau ended in a drop that was steep but not impassable. The best line of approach was from the south, where a narrow path led up the side of the rocks from the more modest hills where the portal sites were located. It had taken some time, but the horses had made the trip, and Vision could widen and flatten the track if need be. About ten minutes' hike to the north was a mountain stream, which Vision had traced back to a lake much higher up in the cliffs.

Water, shelter, defensibility. They could spend another week searching and not come up with better.

Sam turned to Gabriela and asked, "What do you think?"

"As campsites go, I like it," she said. "But we're also supposed to be looking for farmland, right?"

"Right. We're in a forest on a mountain, and Jean wants grain fields. I was thinking that the farming could happen one level below us. We can clear out the trees, divert the stream for irrigation, that sort of thing. It won't exactly be flat, but this place doesn't really do flat."

Gab leaned forward and looked over the edge of the plateau to the forested stretch of ground below. "It's a lot of trees to clear."

"Vision should be able to expedite things."

"That he should."

The two Oregon M's, Matt and Mark — and yes, Sam _did_ know which was which, because he wasn't that guy — completed a circuit of the site and joined them.

"It's big enough," Mark said. "We won't be processing vibranium anymore, so we won't need the whole refinery setup. I'm not sure — do you know if Iron Man and the weapons builders will still need space? Like, are they going to make us haul an entire forge up here?"

"I'm not sure either, but I wouldn't bet against it," Sam said. "Would it cause problems?"

Matt said, "Personally, I'd be happier if people weren't building bombs twenty feet from where I sleep. But we could make it work if we had to."

"Maybe, if we need space for laboratories and foundries or whatever, we can find it further down the hill," Mark suggested. "To the south, and below the farmland, so there's no possibility of contaminating the water."

"Good," Sam said. "Let's head down there next and make sure we can find all the satellite locations we're going to need. But as far as the living situation goes, are the two of you signing off on this place?"

Mark turned to face the plateau, and gestured to different regions as he listed, "Residences, kitchen, eating area, showers, outhouses, greenhouse. There's definitely enough room. The soil is deep enough to sink some foundations — we don't have to build on bare rock. The water supply is even closer than at the first camp, and that ridge will give us some protection from the weather. Yeah — I'm in."

"Me too," Matt added.

All right, then. Vision was still making a wide sweep of the area for predators and other hazards, but assuming he came up empty, Sam was prepared to take this place as a working hypothesis.

"Let's grab the plant ladies and check out the territory downslope," he said. "If we can find some lab space, and if they think they can grow their grains here, then I'm sold."

 


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for references to past emotional abuse. The author is not a Howard Stark fan.

Peter was moping.

He slouched through his work in the lab, plodded after Jean on another barrier-disk harvesting run, and pouted over every meal (not that Tony could blame him for that one). The shift in mood had happened shortly after Tony'd gone to that workout with Jean and Kel, and he'd been wracking his brains to figure out if this was _his_ fault somehow, like maybe the kid felt snubbed for not getting an invite. But that didn't make a whole lot of sense: with Peter's enhanced strength, hand-to-hand with standard-issue humans was a pointless exercise.

Whatever the reason, this was the third day in a row that Peter had spent looking like someone had kicked his puppy. Tony had to get to the bottom of it.

They'd both finished their uninspiring evening meals and were relaxing at their usual table. Alisha, who was not a night person, had left. The two of them had relative privacy.

"So, how are things?" Tony asked.

A lengthy sigh. A shrug. "Fine," Peter said.

"Persuasive. Come on, kid, something's obviously bothering you. What's up?"

Another, even lengthier sigh. "Nothing."

Hoo boy. "Missing home?" Tony hazarded. "It's been a month. Long time to be gone."

"No," Peter said. "Well — yeah, of course I miss… some people. And my friends. But I know it's only been like two hours for them, so… it's okay."

All right. Call that strike one. "Something else, then," Tony said. "You worried about… combat-related things?" He waved his hand at the general environs. "None of which you will be involved with, by the way."

"I mean, I think about it sometimes," Peter said. "But we're building weapons, and we've got all this time to make plans, and I figure… Jean knows what she's doing, right? She wouldn't've started all this if she didn't know what she was doing." He shot Tony a quick, defiant look through the mask. "And Mr. Stark, you don't have to keep me hidden away from all the fighting. I can _help_."

The comment was plainly designed to divert him, but Tony wasn't taking the bait. He chalked up strike two, and replied, "We can review the parameters of your participation in camp defense another time. For now, let's stay on point. Is there something else you're worried about?"

Headshake.

"You get in an argument with someone?"

Headshake.

"You stubbed your toe? You lost your socks? Your pet lizard flew away? Seriously, kid, give me something to work with here."

The third sigh was the lengthiest yet. Tony, working off some instinct that he couldn't articulate, shut his trap and waited, and busied himself with picking at a splinter on the side of the picnic table.

"If I tell you something," Peter said slowly, "will you promise not to get angry?"

Instant alarm bells. "Nope," Tony said. "Tell me anyway."

But the kid shrank down to half his size and rapidly shook his head. "No, it's… actually, you were right before: I miss home. I wish I could go back, just for a couple seconds, you know? To make sure everyone's okay."

He started to say something else — a fake yawn got involved — but Tony's senses greyed out at the shock of memory that speared through him.

It wasn't a specific scene so much as a weight of accumulated experience. A truth inculcated so early on that he couldn't recall ever _not_ knowing it: if he had a problem, he couldn't bring it to his father. Peter's question was one that Tony had learned never to ask by the time he'd been half the kid's age. Howard had had minimal interest in his successes, no patience for his failures, and as for fears or upsets or insecurities… well, Tony'd been a _sensitive_ child (until he'd learned not to be), and sensitivity equalled weakness equalled lack of worth.

(At least, _sensitive_ had been the kindest of the words.)

And whatever… whatever dubious level of peace he'd managed to reach with the idea that Howard had done the best he could with badly limited resources, the whole fucking thing was pointless, utterly _pointless_ unless Tony could find the means to do better.

"Wait a sec," he said. His voice seemed to be coming from very far away.

Peter froze in place.

"I'm beginning to think my initial approach was flawed," Tony said. "Can we wind this back a bit, give it another try?"

Peter slowly sank back down onto the bench. The mask made his face only marginally harder to read — his eyes were open books — and he was plainly scared.

Scared of Tony, and how Tony was going to react to whatever he'd planned to say.

_You did that, you pathetic fuck-up. Now fix it._

Tony leaned forward and rubbed his eyes. "It's, uh… been pointed out to me in other contexts that my temper has been on something of a hair-trigger lately," he said. "Is that, by any chance, a factor in play here?"

"I guess… you were so angry when I first got here," Peter said quietly. "And that time in Jean's office. And when you punched Captain America."

Tony wanted to thump his head on the table. _Fucking_ Rogers and—

No. _No_. Stop it.

"Yeah," he said instead. "There might be… something of a problem there. But it's my problem, not yours, and starting now, I'm going to do a better job of keeping it that way." He took a fortifying breath. "So how about you tell me whatever it was you were going to tell me, and whatever reaction there is to be had, I'll deal with it somewhere that isn't you-adjacent. Sound fair?"

Peter didn't respond right away, and Tony's stomach began to twist itself in knots, because _of course_ it had been too little, too late, who the hell did he think he was fooling—

But then Peter said, "Do you remember — it was that same night in Jean's office a few weeks ago — when she told me I had to go see the doctor?"

"Yeah."

"Um. Well, I kind of… didn't?"

Not exploding. _Not_ exploding. Steady breaths until the spike of fear and anger eased. "Interesting," Tony said. "What's particularly interesting is that I also remember asking you the next morning if you'd been to the infirmary yet, and you told me yes."

"Well, I did go," Peter said. "To the building. But that was when Captain America was still there, and they were busy and I didn't want to interrupt, so I figured I'd come back later. But then no one seemed to notice, and I just…" He ducked his head sheepishly.

Tony cobbled together the mildest thing he could bring himself to say, which was, "Kid, that was not a good call."

"Yeah, I know," Peter said, "but then the next day I went with Kel on that run outside the boundary, right? And somehow she knew that I'd skipped out. She told me that… that people from our side of the portal get sick here and die after a couple years, and the scorpions only figured out how to cure it by studying her. But I heal fast, right? _Really_ fast. And she can repair the damage on her own — she told me so — so I figured maybe I could, too. So she agreed to let me wait a month and see. And then we had to work out what we both meant by a month, since she does everything in twenty-fives, but—"

"But you negotiated her up to thirty, and since the day count just now was two seventy-one, tomorrow's your deadline," Tony concluded.

Peter nodded miserably. "Yeah."

Well. Problem identified. Tony needed to determine the cause before he could attempt repairs, but he had a reasonable hypothesis.

"It's the needles, huh."

"What? No. No! _No_." Peter blinked. "Wait, there's more than _one_?"

"You get hit by cars," Tony said.

"That's completely different, and _anyway_ , it's not just…" Peter glanced over his shoulder, then leaned in and lowered his voice. "I _changed_ , right? I'm different now. And it's awesome, everything works great. But it's weird to think of people being interested in _how_ it works, you know? Like, _examining_? And besides, it's not like going to the doctor normally. She lives here. I see her every day, and now she's gonna…" He gestured descriptively. "It's embarrassing."

The pricking and prodding every five months wasn't exactly Tony's favorite part of camp life, but Aaron and Kel had successfully made their case that the alternative was worse. He'd been working the problem off and on for months now, and had roughed out enough of a model to support their conclusion: the long-term prognosis for humans in this universe was permanent neurological degeneration. Frankly, he was amazed that the scorpions could have developed a drug regimen for it at all.

(What he wouldn't have given for access to FRIDAY for a few hours. Even he couldn't reproduce that kind of processing power with pencil and paper. She could have run the simulations in a few hours, and given him a time frame besides.)

All things considered, though, he didn't imagine that Peter was going to be won over by the math.

"Out of curiosity," Tony said, executing truly superhuman levels of effort in order to keep his voice light, "has your fun little experiment with brain chemistry yielded any measurable results?"

Peter curled up a little tighter and refused to meet his eyes. "Um. The last couple days, I've started getting these headaches."

Another vivid flash of anger, this time directed at Kel — what the _fuck_ had she been thinking, letting Peter screw around with his health like that — but again he waited it out. Railing at her wouldn't address the current problem.

Unfortunately, he didn't have the first damned clue what _would_. When 'you have to' squared off against 'I don't want to'... well, necessity won, it always did, but knowing the outcome wasn't making Peter any less miserable about it. This was a moment for actual life guidance _stuff_ , and Tony clearly wasn't that guy, he was a walking catastrophe in his own right, not—

Well, actually. There was a thought.

"Hey, did I ever tell you about when I first got here?"

Peter shook his head.

"Interesting story," Tony said. His mind was racing well ahead of his mouth, pre-scouting the pieces that were going to cause him the most trouble. "I came through in the suit, which promptly ran afoul of this planet's enmity toward power sources and exploded mid-flight. Not my worst landing ever, but it made the bottom ten. Messed me up pretty badly." He laid his forearm on the table between them, and pointed at the faint scar that still remained. "This was the worst of it. Compound fracture. Nasty stuff. Plus I cracked some ribs, concussion, that sort of thing." He remembered, barely, the misery of those pain-ridden, fever-soaked days. "The guards gathered us up, did the bare minimum of patching up needed to keep us all moving, and marched us down the mountain. It's a three-day trip, and by the end of it, the arm was infected and… well, why mince words. I was dying."

Peter was silent. His eyes were very wide.

"They led us all to the infirmary," Tony continued. He sounded so very calm. "Since I was the worst off, I got bumped to the front of the line. One of the guards took me inside, and that's when I got my first look at…" He made the universal gesture for Kel: five fingers drawn down the face. "You have to admit, she doesn't give the most reassuring first impression. And it headed downhill from there. They stripped me naked. Sat me down on the table. Then she sent the guard away, and…" The admission caught in his throat for a long moment before he could coax it out. "I was terrified," Tony said, and Peter's eyes, if possible, got even wider. "Given the level of tech I'd seen so far, I figured she was about to take my arm off with a rusty hacksaw at best, and I'd still have the fun of dying of septicemia a few days later."

They both needed a second, he thought. The narrative lapsed for a stretch.

Eventually, Peter started to ask, "Did… did they really…"

He couldn't articulate what part he was having trouble with, which gave Tony enough of a clue. "Forcibly remove my clothing?" he said. "Yeah, that happened. I'm still a little miffed about it, actually. But luckily that policy went out with the previous administration."

"What happened next?"

This part — the turnaround — was easier. "Kel was pretending not to speak English at the time, so we weren't exactly having an unfettered exchange of views," Tony said. "She blocked the pain, first off. That got my attention. Then she gave a demo of her healing powers on herself. And then she backed off. Gave me the space to meet her halfway."

"Did you?"

"Wasn't easy," he said. "But yeah. I took a chance. Decided to cooperate. And — okay, the empath stuff? It's _weird_. But — oh, and I should mention that Aaron was there, too. He played her assistant, back in the day." A stray detail that probably should have been obvious at the time suddenly clicked. "Now that I think about it, there's no way he lip-reads Mino-speak — when he was translating for her, he must have just said that she said whatever she _should_ have— well. Not germane. The _point_ is, between the two of them, they fixed me up — properly, no hacksaws — and even if it wasn't _fun_ , they both did everything they could reasonably do under the circumstances to make it not entirely horrible."

He stole another glance at his audience. Peter was finally starting to look more pensive than freaked out. "It might also be worth noting," he added, "that my subsequent medical interactions with her — of which there have been a few, both pre- and post-takeover — have been characterized by competence and discretion." One night in particular came to mind. "My point being: as health care practitioners go, Kel is not an unreasonable one. If you've got concerns, talk to her. She'll work with you."

That had been a lot to absorb, Tony realized. He went back to his contemplation of various points other than Peter's face, and let the kid mull for a while.

Eventually, Peter said, "That sounds like it really sucked."

Tony gave a startled bark of laughter. "Yeah, it did. It sucked _hard_. But I got through it."

Another pause. "Thanks," the kid said softly. "Hearing that… helped."

And Tony kept cool on the outside because he didn't want to blow the whole thing now, but on the inside, he was near giddy with relief at having possibly unfucked this particular situation. Okay. All right. Good call. One in a row. Starting a trend.

Then Peter said, "While we're talking about things and not getting mad… can I ask you something?"

_And_ it was alarm bells all over again. Tony braced himself. "Yeah, go ahead."

"A while ago, I kind of saw Jean's back? Like, her skin?"

"Kid, if this story involves a shower stall and a peephole—"

"No!" he yelped. "That's not— Mr. Stark, I would _never_ — she and Falcon were working out and her shirt kind of— it was an accident!"

He held up his hands placatingly. "All right, all right, I believe you."

" _Anyway_ ," Peter said still sounding scandalized, "I _accidentally_ saw a tiny piece of her back, and she's got… these scars? Like, a lot of them? And I remember you said something happened before we took over the camp, that you might have wanted payback for. So, I guess…" Tony watched him try and fail to get a direct question to come out of his mouth. "Before we came, how bad was it here?"

That first day was one thing, since it had basically turned out all right, but he was _not_ taking the kid on a guided tour of the time he'd been tortured (or, for that matter, any of the times he'd been tortured). "Most of the time," Tony said, "if you kept your head down and your mouth shut and did the work, it wasn't that bad."

"And other times?"

"Other times, it was worse."

"So… do you…"

Peter still couldn't get the question out, but Tony gave a tight nod anyway. He hadn't seen the scars, of course — no mirrors — but he felt them every time he scrubbed down his back. Kel was good at the internal stuff, but didn't seem to have Aaron's level of fine-grain control over those pesky layers of epidermis.

His response left Peter looking a little green around the gills. "That's _awful_ ," he breathed.

"Yeah. Pretty much was." The glibness came out reflexively, a layer of protection against memories that still threatened to turn into flashbacks. "Funnily enough, though — still not the worst week I've ever had."

" _A week_?"

"Well, five days, but that's not— you know what, forget about that. Not the point." Terrible comment. He wasn't thinking straight. "It was ten months ago," Tony said, back on safer territory, "and I'm — more or less, for a given value of the term — fine now. And if it hadn't been me, it would have been someone else, so… big-picture, it served a purpose."

Peter shook his head rapidly. "No, you shouldn't have had to do that," he said. "Someone should've stopped it."

"We had nineteen months to go, and nothing close to the kinds of defensive capabilities that we've got now," Tony said. "If Jean had blown her cover that early, she would have gotten everyone killed."

No reply was forthcoming. Peter still looked unconvinced.

"Maybe now you can understand why I was so unhappy to see you here," he continued. "This isn't the intramural league anymore. We're playing for keeps." Tony felt the fear stirring in his chest, and let it reach up toward the surface, just for a second. Just long enough to say, "If anything happens to you, I'm the guy who'll have to explain to _some people_ why you're not coming home. And honestly, kid… I don't think I've got it in me."

Peter's breath hitched a little.

Okay, that was enough openness and honesty for several lifetimes.

"By the way," Tony said, "don't think I've forgotten that you had help getting here. When we get back, I'll be having some words with your accomplice. Who is this guy, anyway?"

"I have no idea," Peter said. "Honest. I didn't even know it was a guy. I _definitely_ didn't know it was a guy named Peter."

"Then how exactly did you encounter this enigmatic character?"

They were both loosening up again, breathing a little easier. "It started a couple months ago," Peter said. "You know those YouTube videos? Well, there was this one person who kept leaving comments—"

"You read the _comments_?"

"Not most of them! But this one guy in particular, he talked like he knew other people with abilities. And this one time he left a bunch of links to information on how to communicate online anonymously. Mostly it was stuff I already knew, but I checked it out and it was all legit, and… well, I got curious, you know?" Peter gave him the innocent look of a person who had never in his life made an unreasonable decision. "And eventually, we kind of… started messaging now and then. When you showed up in my apartment that day, for a second I thought it had been you the whole time. But it wasn't. Obviously."

"Ah… no."

"Then after the portal in Illinois, I was up late watching the news — everyone was — and he sent me a message that the next portal was coming to New York, and he and some friends of his were tracking it and knew things about the other side, and if I wanted to go, he would help me. That's how it happened."

"So — short version — you jumped through an interdimensional portal to a hostile alien planet on the word of an anonymous commenter from the internet."

Peter scowled. "Okay, when you say it _that_ way, it sounds ridiculous."

"Fancy that."

"I know you think I shouldn't have come here—"

"Picked up on that, did you?"

"—and maybe I didn't know what I was getting into, but I couldn't just leave you here by yourself." He crossed his arms and jutted his chin out. "I'm not sorry about doing it. I'm not."

Tony met those eyes squarely and stared back just long enough for the kid to start sweating. Then he said, "Again, nice try on the attempted diversion. Very provocative. But getting back to the original topic—" he ignored Peter's quiet groan "—if we head over to the infirmary right now, I bet you Kel will be there waiting for us. She's annoying like that."

Peter's eyes bugged out. "Right _now_?"

"Right now. Both of us." This sure as hell hadn't been on Tony's agenda when he'd gotten up that morning, but… "Turns out I also have a minor piece of business with her that I've been putting off. It's time."

"Are you okay?" Peter asked.

"Yeah, of course," Tony said with a dismissive flick of his fingers. "It's just an overdue conversation, don't worry about it. But we can waste another day anticipating it, or we can go and get it over with and be done. What do you say?"

It was perhaps the world's tiniest 'okay'. But when Tony got up and headed across the town square toward the infirmary, Peter followed.

"A few follow-up comments as they occur to me," Tony said as they walked, because they both needed the distraction. "First off, getting angry when I first saw you? _Entirely_ justified. You had absolutely no business throwing yourself into this, and we will be having _extensive_ discussions on the subject after we get home."

"I know," Peter said quietly.

"Good. Second? Don't loophole me again. That whole 'went to the building' thing — fine, very cute, you get exactly one of those, and now you've used it and it's gone. Got it?"

A nod.

They reached the infirmary building and circled around toward the waiting room door. Tony stopped short of opening it. "Lastly," he said, "and don't for a second take this as an endorsement of your decision to come here, because as stipulated in point one, that was not a good decision. But as far as subsequent matters are concerned… you're doing good here. Maybe I haven't — have I mentioned that yet?"

Peter, looking up at him in that way of his that made Tony feel the bite of every shortcoming, silently shook his head.

"Yeah. You're doing all right." He jerked his head. "Now quit stalling and head on in there."

Whichever healer a person went looking for, nine times out of ten, that was the one they'd find on duty. Sure enough, by the magic of empathic trickery, Tony and Peter stepped into the waiting room and Kel appeared to greet them.

"Hi," she said. "Do you need something?"

Tony gave Peter a little nudge, and he took a deep breath.

"You know that… appointment that I missed, that time?" he said. "I know I've still got until tomorrow, but…"

"You're ready?" Kel said, and Peter managed a nod. "Sure. We can do this now." She looked past him to Tony, curiously.

"Oh, don't mind me," Tony said. "I'm just moral support. I'll wait out here until you're through. And, kid — make sure you mention the headaches."

"I know," Peter muttered.

"He's been getting headaches," Tony said to Kel. "You know, because you made the _fascinating_ decision to let him find out the hard way whether he's immune to the environment. Answer's _no_ , by the way. You might want to write that down somewhere."

"Spider-Man and I will discuss it," Kel said, not looking chastened at all. She put on what Tony thought of as her professionally reassuring smile and beckoned to Peter. "Come in. Don't worry, this will be quick."

They vanished into the exam room.

Tony sat down on a bench. Stood back up. Started pacing. This called for some serious long-distance pacing.

He'd been through this particular drill three times now. It didn't take all that long. Even if they talked first. Even if they talked really, really slowly.

And he didn't think that Kel was going to screw it up. If he'd had any doubts about her, he would have never let her get within arm's reach of the kid in the first place. No, she'd take it easy and Peter would be fine, and afterward Tony would have an easy _I told you so_ card to play at every possible opportunity.

Peter would be fine. Obviously.

And once he was done, it would be Tony's turn.

He didn't want to. But he had to.

He couldn't have been waiting more than twenty minutes. It only _felt_ like he'd aged twenty years. Then the door opened, and Tony swiftly sat down so that it would look like he was just standing up to meet them.

Peter wasn't wearing his mask. His expression was reassuringly calm.

"You changed your look," Tony noted.

"Yeah." He scratched his nose. "After a while, it starts to itch."

"And you're good? All in one piece, basically untraumatized?"

"Yeah," Peter said again, and glanced at Kel shyly. "It wasn't so bad."

"Told you so."

He sighed and rolled his eyes, because what was even the point of having a teenager around if they didn't sigh and roll their eyes. "Mr. Stark, didn't you say you needed to talk to Kel about something, too?"

_Brat_. "Yeah. I did." He turned to her. "If you've got a second?"

"Of course," Kel said, and now Tony was the one being led through the inner door.

She closed the door behind them and there was a _serious_ moment of panic when the latch caught, because _don't want to don't want to don't want to—_

_Have to._

Kel, inevitably, was picking up on all this bullshit in progress. She walked around him with slow and measured paces, keeping a healthy distance, and set herself up in a nonthreatening lean against the far counter.

When he could breathe again, he said, pointlessly, "Hi."

"Hi, Tony."

The pacing picked back up. "You know that it's… that I—" The English language saw him coming and fled. "There are certain matters where attempting to discuss them is…"

"Take your time," she said.

Slow breaths. Slow breaths.

"The last few days," Tony said, directing his words to any point except her face. "Weeks. Arguably years, though maybe let's not get into that. Uh… the insomnia thing. Panic attacks. Flashbacks. One or two near-blackout rages. All probably not ideal. So. That night — the night that…" He glanced at her; got a nod. "You said there were ways that a healer could help. Did you mean you?"

"If you allow," she said. "Yes."

"And this, uh… this doesn't involve your powers crawling around in my brain, does it?" He touched his fingers to his temple. "Because I can't—"

"No," she said firmly. "I wouldn't do this. What I can do is listen. Suggest techniques to help the symptoms. As necessary and if you agree, try certain medications. It isn't fast, but with time, it will help."

Tony's meanderings had carried him over to her side of the room. He felt like he was about to vibrate out of his skin. Like a loud noise would jolt him straight up through the roof. And he _hated_ it. _All_ of it. The exhaustion, the nerves, the memories that wouldn't stay where they belonged. Never, ever feeling safe.

And he hated how careful Kel was being, with her deliberately awkward pose and her nonchalant alertness, and he hated that he needed it.

Tony forced himself to step in closer, to settle his jittery wandering, and finally to lean up against the counter beside her. "The problem that was thrown into sharp relief this evening," he said, "is that the kid— is that Peter needs me to have a better grip on things than I've currently got. So… I think I need to have a bit more of that conversation. If you're willing."

Kel nodded. "Of course, Tony."

What ensued was a slow and careful and terrifying talk about things that Tony already knew. In the course of developing his self-administered (self-inflicted?) therapy tech, he'd gotten on top of the relevant literature, from various talk-therapy principles to the neurochemistry of trauma. He recognized her questions as a very standard preliminary assessment, the conclusion of which (not that Kel put it this way) was that he was pretty fucked up. He came out of it with a refill for his ridiculous little sedative leaves, and a standing weekly appointment.

"If you can, come to train with Jean and me some more," Kel added, and Tony knew that one, too: offsetting memories of helplessness with the sensation of taking action, plus side-orders of team-building and physical contact of the non-damaging variety.

"I don't want to cramp your style," he said. "The two of you were obviously holding back."

"So were you," she noted. "The level of combat increases as the level of trust does."

"Yeah, maybe." He had actually felt great that entire day, but the mess at the beginning of the session had left him with some qualms about trying it again. "On a different topic, if you don't mind my asking, what are your credentials, exactly? If any? Obviously you're not licensed by any Earth-based organization, and if we're really going to take an extended tour of my… circumstances, I'd like to know who I'm inviting along for the ride."

"It's fair," Kel said. "I come from a culture where every adult survives a battlefield. All go to war. Some die, some stay, and some come back. Those who come back have to learn to function in a way that doesn't damage. There are processes for this. They are studied and understood, and most times they work very well. We all learn the basics as children, because any one of us might need it later. Also…" She paused, and looked down at her missing hand. "When I decided to come back, I needed help for a time. After, it was important to me to learn how it was done, so I could help someone who came next. I don't know if there's a way to say it in Human — some debts flow through."

"English," Tony said reflexively, even though he was sure she got that wrong on purpose.

"Yes, whatever."

"And we say, 'pay it forward'."

Her lips moved silently as she tried it out. "I like ours better. Anyway, does this answer you?"

"Near enough." Alien therapy — sure, why the hell not. It was far from the most ill-considered coping mechanism he'd ever tried. "And the kid's fine, right? Healthy? Those headaches are going to clear up?"

"He's fine," Kel said patiently. "It takes much more than one month for any kind of danger. I would never let him damage himself, Tony. I hope you believe this."

She had to be right about that, actually: the Oregon Six predated everyone else, including Kel, by ten months, and none of them seemed to have suffered any long-term ill effects. "Yeah," Tony said. "It's just… concerning him, specifically…"

"Yes." Kel laid her hand lightly on his arm. "You watch for him. I know. So does he."

Tony tried. He was trying. And he was going to work on doing better. He had to.

 

* * *

 

To Steve's surprise, Jean continued to join him on his evening walks. She was undemanding company, which was good since Steve had very little to offer. Often they spent nearly the entire circuit in silence.

As far as the camp's defensive plans were concerned, she had at least the beginnings of some good ideas. Specifically, she had numbers: how long the enemy forces would be stranded across the sea once Vision destroyed their ships; how far up the coast they could be forced to land once they arrived; how quickly a large ground force could move through densely forested terrain; how many mines Tony's team could manufacture, and how much territory they could cover.

Delaying actions. That was the core of their strategy.

But no matter how Jean juggled the numbers, there was going to be combat, and that was where the plans turned hazy. Their side still had some heavy hitters in the form of Vision and Wanda (Jean seemed to put Kel in the same category, though Steve was dubious). What they didn't have was much in the way of specific information on the enemy's capabilities. Jean's intel all came from Kel, who had met Mjentur in combat before but who admittedly hadn't seen the enemy base across the water.

"We can still draw conclusions based on the limitations of the environment," Jean had said to him. "They have blunt and edged weapons, and the corresponding style of plate armor. It's very likely that they have siege weapons of some kind. But they don't have tanks or planes or even firearms. Moreover, I think there's a good chance that they will severely underestimate our level of preparation. If they send an insufficient force and it fails, that's even more time that we've bought ourselves."

Yeah. Possibly.

The way Jean talked about combat made it clear to Steve that she was working through a theoretical exercise. It was too bloodless. Even if she was correct in all her assumptions — and Steve was by no means prepared to grant that — the actual implementation was going to be a lot messier than a bunch of moves on a chessboard.

He didn't raise any of this with her, though. She'd learn it for herself sooner or later.

At the moment, they were waiting for the survey team to locate a secondary campsite, after which they would be waiting for Vision to provide a map of the area, after which would come proposed fortifications and weapon emplacements, labor hour estimates, arable land estimates, travel time estimates… (if nothing else, Jean had the logistical aspects of war well in hand). But for now, there was nothing Steve could do but pace his pointless, silent circles.

It was getting a little easier to complete the loop. He was still winded by the end of it, but he didn't ache as much. The last time he'd been to the infirmary, Aaron had told him that his injuries were healed, but he'd lost stamina and muscle mass due to the infection, the bed rest that had followed, and of course the alien tech. It was going to take time — everyone just loved to tell him that — to build back up to whatever capabilities were still within his reach.

He would far rather hear about how much time it would take to build a catapult or extend the safe travel corridor. At least those things served a purpose.

Steve came to the end of another evening stroll. His knees felt like rubber, and sweat was dripping down his back. Jean had kept pace beside him, patient as ever.

"You know you don't have to keep doing this," Steve said to her. It had become their standard sign-off.

"I'm aware," she replied. But then she broke tradition and added, "Tell you what — let's go around again."

Steve almost laughed. "Feel free," he said to her. "But I'm done for the night."

"Partway, then," Jean said. "We can turn back once we reach Flopsy and Mopsy."

That gave him pause. "Who named the oxen—"

"Natasha."

"Ah."

"Shall we go?"

He bit the inside of his lip until he could reply without snapping. "You may not believe this," he said, very carefully, "but that three-quarter-mile is all I've got, and wishing it were otherwise won't change the facts. Goodnight."

His cabin was right there, barely twenty steps away. His legs were shaking and it felt like he was hauling a hundred-pound pack (back when a hundred pounds had been impossibly heavy). Just twenty more steps, and he could lie down and let sleep claim another day.

"Steve," Jean said, and something in her voice made him stop and brace himself. "You're not pushing yourself."

Without turning, he said, "I don't think you're in any position to determine that."

"I'm in a position of direct line of sight. The determination wasn't difficult." She stepped out into his path. "I don't propose this as a character flaw. It's a symptom. You're not pushing yourself. Simplistically, either you don't want to, or you can't. Either one strikes me as a problem deserving of attention. How can we help? What do you need?"

_Fix me_. "Nothing," he said. "There's nothing that you or anyone else can do for me. Your people have made that very clear. Now, if you'll excuse me?"

He took a step forward, and another. Jean didn't move. Some fragment of stiff-necked pride wouldn't permit him to step around her. (That was what Bucky would have called it, or at least that was the first thing Bucky would have called it before he started getting creative.) So he walked and she held her ground until they were nose to nose.

And because there was only one way he knew how to respond to a challenge, Steve said, "Are you really going to make me go through you?"

Jean was of a height with him. She held his eyes, impassive. (They both knew he couldn't hurt her. This was a bluff. Or not even a bluff — a gamble that he was guaranteed to lose.)

"If I thought for a moment that making you angry enough to take a swing at me would improve the situation," she said, "I would cheerfully take that punch. A pity life isn't so trite."

Then she stepped aside.

Steve counted down the steps, and breathed a quiet sigh of relief when his hand finally landed on the doorknob. Just a few more seconds, and he could—

"Hi, Steve," Natasha said.

He would have jumped a foot, if he could have jumped. "Really, Nat?"

She was sitting on his cot with her back against the wall, ankles crossed. The cot being so narrow, this left Steve almost no room. He wondered why the universe was suddenly so dead set against him sitting down.

"I haven't seen you around much," she said. "Figured I'd stop by and catch up."

Steve shuffled three extra steps to the foot of the cot, resenting each one, and finally sank down off his wobbly legs. He didn't even bother engaging with the fiction that Natasha was here coincidentally. "I'm surprised to see you and Jean teaming up," he said. "I thought the two of you were doing some sort of spy versus spy thing."

"Jean's no spy," Natasha sniffed. "And we called a momentary truce in the face of a mutual problem." When he didn't engage with that, either, she continued, "I talked to Aaron. Not that he would tell me anything, but the guy is a _terrible_ liar — worse than you, if you can believe that."

"Shocking."

"He as good as confirmed that you're not as far along as you could be. Jean's right: you're not pushing yourself. And since the Steve Rogers I know never backed down from a fight in his life, something is obviously up."

"It's amazing how many people have become experts on my health all of a sudden," Steve said.

"If I were the one sulking in my room, would you let me get away with it?"

There was no way to say _I'm not sulking_ without sounding sulky. Steve tried it anyway. Natasha was unswayed.

"You _are_ sulking," she told him. "A case could be made that you've earned a good sulk. But it isn't a long-term solution."

Bizarrely, she then hopped off the cot and crouched down beside it, and began fishing around on the floor beneath.

Steve's brow furrowed. "What are you… I haven't hidden anything under the bed."

"I know _you_ haven't. But this used to be Kel's room. Has anyone told you that?"

"What?"

"Yeah. She figured you would want the privacy. I think she mostly sleeps in the hospital now. Although one night I spotted her on the roof of the admin building."

Natasha emerged with a sheathed dagger and a leather-bound notebook. She pulled the dagger, tested the edge, and replaced it, then flipped through the book. It was filled with handwritten text that, unsurprisingly, was not in English, or in any script that Steve had ever seen before.

And Steve was _not_ helping Natasha rifle through the room that he'd taken under false pretenses. "I had no idea this belonged to someone else," he said. "I should let her have it back. When I…" Except he hardly ever saw Kel these days. "Can you tell her that—"

"Nope," Natasha said absently, still studying the little book.

Steve sighed. "Fine. Would you put that back? It doesn't belong to you."

With a gleam in her eye that made it clear that she was humoring him, Natasha closed the book and slid it back underneath the bed. "Kel will know I found it," she said, which did not seem to address the issue. "And she'll know I couldn't read it."

"And the point of this is…"

"To let her know that I looked," Natasha said. "So why are you sulking?"

"I'm _not_ —" But Steve broke off when Natasha stepped around to the other side of him and repeated her fishing expedition beneath the foot of the cot. "I cannot have a conversation with you while you're tossing this room."

"Then I guess this could take a while, because I'm going to keep tossing this room until you have a conversation with me."

Now she was rooting around beneath the mattress, and Steve _really_ didn't think he deserved this much grief over wanting to sit. "All right!" he yelped when her hand threatened to discover things she almost certainly wasn't looking for. " _Jesus_ , Romanoff."

"Language, Rogers." She sat back on her heels and looked up at him expectantly.

Steve gave a sigh and leaned his elbows on his knees. Wasn't he pushing? Wasn't it a back-breaking struggle, worse every day, just to get out of bed in the morning? Hadn't he finally, _finally_ earned a moment's rest from fighting battles he couldn't win?

(No, of course he hadn't.)

"I can try harder," he said. "You're right, I'm being selfish. We're going to need everyone at peak performance when the fighting starts, and—"

"Steve," she said, and smiled sweetly. "Knock it off. I'm not here to put you on report. I'm trying to talk with a friend. Or is that too much to ask?"

Steve knew enough to detect the underlying note of seriousness to her question. That she didn't discount the possibility that treating her like a friend _was_ , in fact, too much to ask.

Fatigue bowed his head lower. Quietly, to the floor at his feet, he said, "Rescuing me endangered everyone else. That's what I keep coming back to. You can't deny that part of your risk assessment was based on having the old me — the enhanced me — as part of the camp defense force. But you won't. Even if I could walk two laps today instead of one, it wouldn't change anything." He breathed out. "I think we're going to lose people, and it'll be for nothing."

"Getting you back wasn't _nothing_ , Steve, and if I really have to explain why, then…" Her feet passed through his line of sight, and a moment later she sat down beside him.

"No, you don't have to… I'm sorry. I'm just… tired." It was the bedrock of his existence. The weight bore down on him, an invisible hand pressing him into the ground. "I wake up exhausted. No matter how much I sleep. It keeps getting worse. You tell me I'm not pushing, but…"

Natasha's arm curled around his, and she leaned her head on his shoulder. "I'm going to ask you to do something, and you're not going to like it, but I want you to promise me you'll do it anyway."

"What's that?"

"Promise first."

"Natasha…"

"Promise first."

He turned to her, looking for the joke in her eyes, like he was about to promise to perform "The Star-Spangled Man With A Plan" at dinner the next day or something. But she looked deadly serious.

"I promise," he said.

"The next time you see one of the medical staff — you probably get along best with Aaron, right? — tell him exactly what you just told me. And then at least listen to whatever he has to say about it."

"You think this is a medical problem?"

"Isn't it worth finding out?"

"He told me I was healthy."

"No, he told you that your bones were mended. That's not the same thing. And besides, it's too late — you already promised."

Steve didn't see how talking to Aaron was going to change the basic facts of their situation. But if he was too tired to walk, then he was definitely too tired to argue. "All right," he said. "Next time I see him."

Natasha's hand quickly squeezed his forearm.

"By the way," Steve said, "why are the oxen named Flopsy and Mopsy?"

"Because Clint tried to name them both Tatyana. Obviously I had to retaliate."

That… made about as much sense as any possible explanation could, he supposed.

Then Natasha sprang to her feet and beckoned to him. "Stand up a second."

"What for?" Steve asked.

"Because I want to flip the mattress."

" _Natasha_."

"You haven't noticed any loose floorboards, have you?"

He pointed to the door. "Get out."

Her eyes twinkled with amusement as she obligingly withdrew. But before she could leave him in peace, she had one last parting shot.

"No one's losing anyone, Steve. Trust the team. We'll be ready."

God, he hoped so.

 


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for blunt discussion of a past suicide, and suicidal ideation.

Steve supposed that this was a pointless observation to make about an ambush, but the next ambush he walked into was one he never saw coming.

"Hey, Cap," Clint said, and gave him a jaunty salute from where he'd been feeding Flopsy, Mopsy and the as-yet-unnamed third horse. "How's your stint in PT hell going?"

"Slowly," Steve said. "How about you?"

Clint gave the ox a friendly slap on the flank, and made his way out to meet Steve on the perimeter. "Making progress," he said, and gestured to the cane that he'd recently started using in place of crutches. "But the docs are on me to keep working at it, you know? Mind if I join you for a lap?"

Steve stretched out his arm. Clint fell in beside him, and like everyone who walked with Steve did, slowed his pace.

Of course Steve had spoken with Clint several times before this: to thank him for his role in the rescue, and to make sure he was being well looked after. (It was the main reason that he'd forced himself to leave the cabin for dinner most nights — to keep up with Clint's progress.) What Kel and Aaron had managed to do for him was nothing short of miraculous, and Steve was more grateful than he could express.

Those conversations, admittedly, hadn't been particularly deep. Clint had played off the whole situation with his typical nonchalance. Steve had wondered sometimes whether it was his job to dig deeper, or to take the man at his word that he was doing fine.

They were approaching the east road when Clint said, "So I'm the third person to casually drop in on you in the past couple days, right? If I was you, I'd maybe wonder if all the people who've been talking to me have also been talking to each other. And we have. So, no bullshit — I'm here talking to you, like, _talking_."

Steve sighed. So much for a peaceful evening "If you're about to tell me that I'm not pushing myself—"

"Naw, none of that," Clint said. "How the hell would I know? I'm about to tell you a story. It'll be useful or it won't — that part's up to you."

There was something to be said for the lack of artifice, at least. And it wasn't like Steve had any possible escape.

"This was a ways back," Clint said. "Before your time. Well — before your second time. After your first time. You get the point. Anyway, I was stationed in Classified, running joint ops with classified — you know how it is. And there was this guy. Let's call him Bob. Bob was pretty much a local legend. He was special forces, had a ridiculously long career, won every medal there was. I'd heard of him before I got there — pretty much everyone in the business had.

"And Bob could have retired to a comfy little lakeside cottage any time he wanted. Could have done it years ago. But that wasn't in the cards. He had no family, no ties to the civilian world. All the guys he came up with had kicked it years back. Bob was the only one left, and he wasn't going anywhere. He volunteered for the riskiest ops, and he was so damned good that he did the job and got home in one piece, every time.

"Until one time he didn't. Mission went south. Bob was laying down cover fire to give his unit a chance to retreat, and he took a nasty gut shot. Ordered them to leave him behind, and they did, just long enough to get back to base and demand an extraction. And because it was Bob, the higher-ups agreed. I was on the extraction team, and — well. It was bad. We got him out alive, but by the time all the surgeries were over, he'd lost a couple feet of intestine, some other internal stuff… it was the sort of thing where you're gonna spend the rest of your life attached to a plastic bag. No chance he'd never see action again.

"And that's a shitty break, but folks were saying, hey, it's _Bob_. He never backed down from a fight in his life. He served with honor, fought through more kinds of hell in his time than most of us can imagine, and he'll find a way through this, too.

"So Bob got out of the hospital, went home, and two days later he blew his brains out."

Steve's feet came to a halt of their own accord.

He didn't remember much about the first time he'd died. ( _Or had it been the second time? Didn't 'Project Rebirth' by necessity follow a death?_ ) But he remembered—

— _bone-deep jolt of impact and a cacophony of noise as the airplane canopy shattered. He'd thrown up his arms to protect his face, and there'd been time for him to take one breath of cold, salty air and to think what a pointless move_ that _had been before—_

"And the bit that gets me," Clint continued, like he hadn't just carved reality open, "was the shock, this fuckin' _shock_ , like how could _Bob_ of all people… Like all kinds of battles are the same, and winning one kind means you're gonna win them all. Which is horseshit. And for those of us who'd actually been paying attention — who'd been screaming for weeks, months, _someone_ for the love of God get this guy out of the field — it wasn't a goddamned shock. It was the obvious fucking conclusion.

"Because Bob _was_ a patriot and a brave sumbitch and everything else they said he was, but he was _also_ a guy with one foot out the door. Had been for years. Part of the reason he was too damned ornery to retire — not the whole reason, but a part of it — was that every mission he took gave him another shot at a way out. Guys go out on ops and don't come back. It happens. Everyone gets it. Clean and easy. You do that job for too long, you bury every piece of you that's not designed for war, and one day you find that all you've got left is… death. Having that exit — it's a safety net. Once Bob lost it, he had to choose. One side of the door or the other."

The obvious question rattled around Steve's head like a ricochet, but he found himself afraid to voice it: _Is that what you think I_ —

"Fast-forward to the New York invasion," Clint said. "You remember that one — where I helped murder near a hundred of my coworkers."

"That wasn't _you_ ," Steve snapped.

"Yeah, it was," Clint shot back. "It _was_ me. My hands, my weapons, my training. And shit, Steve, I know you're not in a good place to hear this, but it _matters_. It's not the only thing that matters, but it _does_ , and you don't get to decide that it doesn't."

He took a breath. "Anyway. New York happened. And afterward, I got out and I stayed out until I was damned sure what side of the door I wanted to be standing on. And I tell you, Cap, getting my head on straight again was damn near the hardest thing I've ever had to do. I didn't do it alone, either. It's different for me, too, since I've got a wife and kids. Folks who don't have that? I get it, there's good reasons not to, but _damn_ , I don't envy 'em."

Folks like Steve. The man out of time. (That phrase was wrong. Steve had time in terrible abundance. It was everything else that had run out.)

The question began to leak out of him in pieces. "Is that what… do you think…"

"The way I hear it, you were willing to go down with the ship in DC, and again in Sokovia," Clint said. "Not to mention that time in '45 when you _did_ go down with the ship. Not for nothing, you know?" He looked away and gave a one-shouldered shrug. "Look, if it's not about you, then it's not. No harm, no foul. But if there's any chance that it _is_ … you gotta face it. Work at it. If that means talking things out with people, doctors, whatever — we're behind you. The whole team is behind you. But you can't live with one foot out the door. Especially not if it feels like that door's closing."

Steve hadn't felt so turned inside-out since… well, since he'd been nailed to a wooden slab while a group of giant scorpions had turned him inside out. It felt like… like things were being seen and touched and heard that had no business being brought into the light.

And he _wasn't_ … after all, what the hell kind of selfish bastard would he be to abandon his team while they were still in danger? They deserved every scrap of fight he could wring from whatever was left of him — it was the reason he kept walking the same circle each evening, even as fatigue and futility dragged him down.

(It then occurred to him that 'selfish' was an odd word to have put where he'd just put it.)

Clint was just standing there, placidly contemplating the nearby trees like he had nothing else on his agenda.

Steve said the only thing he could think of, which was, "I have no idea what to say."

"Pretty sure you're not supposed to," Clint said. "Unless you want to tell me to fuck off. That'd be fair."

"No, that's not…" Steve grit his teeth and tried to work his way through the fog in his head to a concrete reaction. "I don't think I want to die," he said. "But… I'm useless like this, and it's not getting any better. I think my life doesn't matter nearly as much as the innocent people we've all put at risk."

"There's a lot more ways to be useful than just the ones measured in horsepower," Clint said. "And that feeling — like, maybe you're not actively picking out a cliff to jump off, but it also wouldn't be a huge deal if things turned out that way? That's still what I'm talking about. That's the door. And there's better places to be, Steve, I swear to God there are."

He wasn't so sure. People seemed to act like if he just _felt_ better about the situation, somehow the situation would actually _be_ better. And that wasn't the way reality worked.

But Steve wasn't so lost in his own head that he couldn't recognize what Clint had just done: laid bare a small piece of his own soul because he'd believed that it would help. Steve had responsibilities still, and they included responding to his team's concerns.

"Natasha made me promise that I would talk to Aaron the next time I saw him," Steve admitted. If he was being honest (and of course Captain America was always honest), he was still supposed to be visiting the infirmary every two days, only he hadn't in over a week. That chore, like everything else, had seemed like a lot of effort expended for no observable outcome, and it had reached a point where if he'd gotten the 'it takes time' talk one more time, he might have exploded.

"There's worse ideas," Clint said. "If you want, I can come with. I've got a decent amount of sign, in case of communication problems."

"No, that's all right," Steve said. "We usually manage." He paused. The _now_ hadn't been stated, but it was pretty clearly implied. "But if you wanted to… uh…"

"Walk you there, make sure you don't get lost?" Clint suggested. "Sure thing."

 

* * *

 

He didn't get the 'it takes time' talk. Instead he got blood tests and, uncomfortably, an apology.

"You've already been through so much intrusion," Aaron said. "When you stopped coming to our appointments, I thought that it would be best to let you have your space. But I think I gave the impression that I wasn't interested. That isn't true, and I'm sorry to have implied otherwise."

Steve shook his head. "That was never what I thought. I just… didn't think there was anything else you could do. I was trying to accept it."

Aaron stepped away to load the vials of blood he'd drawn into the peculiar metal device sitting on the far corner of the counter. "I can't give you your superpowers back," he said when he returned, "but if there are other factors at work — and I'm pretty sure there are — there's a good chance I can help you to get them under control. It's worth pursuing, right?"

Steve still had his doubts, but he found them contracting to manageable proportions in the face of Aaron's gentle optimism. He left the infirmary with a promise to come back first thing the next morning and discuss the results.

Clint was sprawled out across one of the benches in the waiting room. He sat up again when Steve appeared, and idly twirled his cane between his fingers.

"So how'd it go?"

"He's doing some bloodwork, and we're going to meet again tomorrow." When Clint's expectant expression didn't alter, Steve added, "He thinks it's possible there are more medical factors in play than just…" He made an up-and-down gesture in his own direction.

"Good," said Clint. "Well — not good like the problems are good, but good like—"

"I know what you meant," Steve assured him.

"Good."

Clint stood up — a process that still took some time and effort — and they both headed for the door.

"You know that was the 'nice and slow, ease you into it' conversation, right?" Clint added once they were outside again. "The next one might dig a little deeper."

"Yeah."

Steve looked up at the sky and took a breath. They'd been going through a stretch where it had rained almost every night, and the clouds were rolling in again. The air was heavy with moisture. He expected to be falling asleep to the rattle of raindrops on the roof.

(Dammit — which reminded him that it wasn't his roof. He hadn't talked to Kel yet, which was mostly but not entirely his own fault. She tended to avoid meals, which were the obvious camp social hours, and in fact Steve wasn't sure how or where she spent the bulk of her time.)

Still. Aside from that small pang of guilt, he felt somehow… more solid. Like he'd been fading away to an outline, and the evening's events had colored him in again.

"Listen—"

"Don't worry about it," Clint said immediately. "We've got each other's backs. That's the whole point, right? That's what I was fighting for."

Steve had to smile at that. "So are you going to fill in your co-conspirators on your progress?"

"Yup," Clint said cheerfully. "We care about how you're doing, Cap. You're not gonna shake us loose any time soon. Get used to it."

 

* * *

 

The follow-up conversation did dig a little deeper. But Steve had very little time to process it all, because immediately after breakfast, he was waylaid by Jean.

"Hello, Steve," Jean said. "I was wondering if you'd like to join me and a small group on an expedition to the suspension bridge this morning. The explosives team has manufactured enough TNT to bring it down, and we're going to test the trigger and set the charges."

"I don't know what your informants have told you," he said dryly, "but a two-hour hike is still a long ways out of my reach."

"We're taking the third horse," Jean said. "I was assuming that you would ride."

"Who's 'we'?"

"Myself, Kel, Tony, Alisha and Spider-Man. And before you ask, if you agree to come, I will tell Tony in advance, and deal with whatever complaints might ensue. I have every confidence that the two of you can safely ignore each other for half a day."

"Why me?"

"For one thing, this place gets dreary after awhile. I find I'm in a better frame of mind after a change of scenery, and I thought you might feel the same. Additionally, the bridge and the ravine are going to play a significant role in our defense. I have some thoughts for contingency plans, and I'd like to get your professional opinion."

It would, if nothing else, give Steve the opportunity to give Kel her room back. "When are you leaving?"

"Very shortly, as soon as we finish gathering provisions," Jean said. "We're planning to stay on-site for lunch and return by midafternoon. Interested?"

He was.

Of course, there were some practical considerations, like checking in with his healer on the feasibility of an off-site excursion.

"It'll be a long day," Aaron said, "but it should be fine, if you take breaks when you need them. Remember to change the patch after lunch. Kel can help you with that, if you want."

Steve reflexively scratched at his arm. It didn't seem reasonable for something to be numb and itchy at the same time, but this was a numb spot that itched.

"I think I've got it covered," he said. "Thanks."

Duly authorized, he went to meet Jean by the livestock. Someone had rigged up saddlebags and a saddle for the horse, the latter of which in particular came as something of a relief.

"As we go, please let me know how the pace is treating you," Jean said, and handed him a leather water sack on a shoulder strap. "My current plan is to take a rest break at the halfway point, there and back, but that can easily be adjusted."

Steve had to chuckle. "I'd ask if you've been talking to Aaron, but I'm pretty sure I already know the answer."

He'd meant it lightheartedly (mostly), but Jean immediately set down the saddlebag she'd been packing and gave him her full attention. "A group of us have been quite the collective pain in the ass, haven't we?" she said. "I have strong opinions about privacy and confidentiality, and in these last few days, I fear I've failed to live up to my principles. Yes, Clint told me that he'd persuaded you to start talking to Aaron again. I have no idea as to the content, and I would never inquire. All I need to know is that you have access to whatever manner of assistance you need."

Steve distracted himself by reaching out a tentative hand to the… the horse. He'd ridden a little during the war, when necessary, and he'd spent more than his share of time hiding in barns, but he'd never been altogether at home with horses when they were _horses_ , let alone when they were sparkling lizards with wings. Still, the animal seemed docile enough. Its forked tongue flicked out across his knuckles, and it obligingly ducked down to let Steve pat its head.

"There's definitely a part of me that wants to tell the lot of you to go to hell," he admitted to Jean. "But it turns out you had a point. Certain things… were harder than they should have been. I wasn't seeing it and you were, so… thanks for not letting up."

She gave her usual understated smile. "That's very gracious. I hope things start to get easier for you."

They finished packing and loading their supplies, then Jean helped Steve up into the saddle. In spite of the creature's wings, which looked like they should have gotten in the way, the seat was surprisingly comfortable and secure. The horse had a broad back, well padded with what Steve supposed had once been flight muscles, although patently this animal could never get itself airborne. Steve's legs hung down just behind the shoulder joints of the wings, and the wings themselves extended up and back around him, so that the experience was a bit like riding in a very shiny sedan chair.

It was very clearly _not_ a suitable mode of conveyance for a giant scorpion. These creatures could only be for sale to other races — ones that were bipedal, and had an eye for the ostentatious.

Jean untethered the horse from its tree, and exchanged its hitching line for a much shorter rope. They set off — Jean leading the horse, Steve swaying gently atop its back — and met the rest of the expedition at the west road.

The remaining four members were carrying water sacks, like Jean and Steve were. Tony and Spider-Man both had on canvas backpacks, with Spider-Man's being clearly the heavier of the two. Kel had a sword on her hip, and was holding the spear that was Jean's conventional weapon. Spider-Man was still wearing his hand-stitched mask. Alisha, waiting off to the side, was absorbed in a sheaf of pages to which she occasionally added pencil notes.

"Hey, Captain America," Spider-Man said, and gave him a cheerful wave.

Tony assiduously ignored this.

"Thanks," Jean said when Kel handed over the spear. "Everyone ready?"

"Yeah," Tony said. "Let's get this show on the road."

They set off. It was a mild fall day, like most of them had been. The horse had a comfortable walking gait, and once he got the hang of its rhythm, Steve was able to relax and enjoy the trip. The sun, filtering through the trees, was pleasantly warm. He could smell dampness in the soil from the rain the previous night. As the convoy distanced themselves from the camp, a few animal noises picked up: chitterings and squawkings, and sometimes the rustle of movement from up in the trees. Nothing large enough to pose a threat.

When Steve had made the inbound trip, back when he and Nat had been pretending to be prisoners (and he'd still been himself), it had taken about two hours to reach the camp from the ravine. Between the uphill gradient in this direction, Jean's very gentle pace, and the break they took, as promised, at the halfway point, Steve guessed that the hike this time took closer to three hours. Nevertheless, they arrived at the suspension bridge with no bickering or complaints.

The last time he'd been here, he hadn't been in a position to admire the architecture. Now, after he'd carefully dismounted the horse and tethered it, and stretched the stiffness out of his back and legs, he paused for a while to take in the view.

The pillars on either side of the ravine soared high above the deck, and supported thick cables that swooped gracefully along the length of the bridge. These in turn supported thinner vertical lines, running at regular intervals to the bottom of the walkway. Below the bridge, the pillars thrust down at an angle to sink into the sides of the ravine. The ends of the cables were anchored deep into the ground, by what mechanism Steve wasn't sure.

And the entire thing, insofar as he could determine, was built from different species of wood. Even the cables had the look of something grown, like they were massive woody vines.

"I haven't seen it in a long time," Alisha said quietly. "I'd forgotten how lovely it is. I almost wish we didn't have to destroy it."

Even Tony looked a bit somber at the thought. It occurred to Steve that he was the only one of them with any experience at this kind of sabotage. The Howlies had been murder on bridges; Dernier would have been beside himself at the chance to take down something on this scale.

"Do you know what you're looking for?" Jean asked Kel.

"Yes, I saw them before," Kel said, obscurely. "But there are only a few left, and none on this side. We have to cross."

"All right. I'll stay here and wait for you to return with the trigger line."

Kel and the explosives team relieved the horse of some of its saddlebags and set out across the bridge, while Jean took a long drink of water and sat down next to the anchoring cable. Steve decided to stick with the better part of valor for the moment, and joined her on the ground.

"Do I get to know what they're looking for?" he asked her.

"Oh, of course," Jean said. "The Nyth, so I've learned, are long-term planners. Many years ago, when they'd decided that they would be expanding in this direction, they seeded the local area with a genetically engineered species of tree: one that's fast-growing and exceedingly strong. Much later, when they were ready to build the bridge in preparation for the current round of portals, they had a supply of organic steel waiting for them. After construction was complete, as Kel said, there were only a few steel trees left over. We're going to blow one up."

Steve ran an exploratory hand along the cable. Its outermost layer did have a texture that resembled bark, but it didn't flake off or yield in the slightest when he tried to get a grip on it.

"It's easy to look at the wood huts we live in and dismiss the culture as technologically primitive," Jean added. "But they truly aren't. I have to keep reminding myself of that."

"I see what you mean."

"I make the bridge about ninety yards long," she said. "You?"

"Closer to a hundred," Steve said. His eyesight, like everything else, wasn't what it used to be, but the determination was straightforward from the time it had taken the explosives team to cross.

"A hundred yards, then. And twenty feet wide. Large, heavily armored soldiers could fit perhaps five abreast, multiplied by what, at least sixty rows?"

"More, if they're in close formation."

"I wanted to be ready to take the bridge down as soon as possible," Jean said. "There are all manner of reasons why it might become necessary on short notice. But I'll consider it a waste of good dynamite if we don't take out three hundred of the enemy at the same time."

Steve's head turned sharply. They'd discussed all manner of numbers before, but until now, she'd avoided enumerating casualties. This felt like a test — of him or of herself, he wasn't certain.

But if Jean thought she was ready for this conversation, Steve was willing to oblige her. "You're planning to mine the coast, right?" he asked.

"Yes."

"So by the time they make it this far, they'll know that we have explosives. If it were me, I wouldn't commit my forces to such an obvious target without inspecting it first."

"Oh, to be sure, there are no guarantees," she said. "But perhaps we'll be able to goad them into pursuing us incautiously."

It was a long shot, which fit in well with the rest of their battle plan, at least. Steve tilted his head, acknowledging the point. "Once the bridge is down, obviously they'll look for another way to cross," he said. "How much do you know about the surrounding terrain?"

"A reasonable amount, albeit from secondhand sources," Jean said. "Kel did as much exploring as she could while the camp was in operation, and she got a look at some maps while she was at the Mjentur garrison. We're as certain as possible under the circumstances that this is the only bridge. The ravine is deep enough to be impassable for at least fifty miles in either direction. To the north, the river unsurprisingly gets wider as you follow it upstream, and the land becomes more mountainous.

"South, then, is the more promising direction. After several days' travel, the cliffs begin to flatten out. The main river branches off into distributaries, like the one near the research outpost, but none of them are that difficult to cross. The river itself is still a challenging ford, but—" she gestured to the forest "—obviously they could build rafts or even a low bridge if they needed to."

All told, then, the destruction of the bridge might buy them a two-week delay. Ten percent of what they needed.

"I've been told that south is where the weaponized giant jaguars are," Steve said. "Are you concerned about the enemy adding some to their arsenal?"

"I'm concerned about everything," Jean replied dryly. "But one of my fundamental assumptions is that the Nyth will want the bulk of their workforce back. They have already sunk time and effort into the problem of long-term human survival on this side of the portal, and I think they won't give up on their investment easily. Kethyshi are good for mowing down everything in their path, not for targeted strikes. That shouldn't be their approach — at least, not initially. On a more practical level, the kethyshi are controlled by scent triggers from specially engineered plants. When we take the research outpost, we'll confiscate or destroy all the relevant materials. Whether the enemy can bring their own controls, and whether they think to do so, I can't say. But at least we won't make it easy for them."

She turned her head toward the south, looking out along the length of the ravine. Maybe imagining it crawling with enemy soldiers. "If you were in charge of quashing our rebellion," she said, "knowing that we have a relatively small defensive team and exactly one chance to escape this planet, how would you do it?"

"I would divide my personnel," Steve replied, "and attack from more angles than you could defend simultaneously." A smaller force could halt a larger one if the larger force allowed itself to become bottlenecked — they'd seen it in New York. Any military leader deserving of the term would take steps to prevent that from happening. "I would expect your tactics to include traps, so I would send out small scouting units in advance of my main forces to find and deactivate them. Your only escape is through the portal, which means I know approximately where the civilian population has to be hiding. I've got five months and overwhelming weight of numbers, so I would run a systematic sweep through the projected portal landing site until I had it secured. If we take the civilians, we win the war. At worst, we trap you here permanently and force a surrender when your supplies run out."

Jean nodded slowly. "Yes, that does sound like the worst thing that could happen."

"Do you have any idea how many they might send?"

"I'm taking two thousand as my working estimate, and hoping to hell that I've overshot."

A cynical bark of laughter jolted out of him. "So cutting down three hundred at the bridge—"

"Is nothing," Jean agreed. "If they make it this far with their numbers intact, we're dead. And you made a valid point: traps are all well and good, but we can't always expect the enemy to be so obliging as to walk into them. We need to thin their numbers significantly, long before they reach the foothills."

"Sounds good in theory, but _our_ numbers are thin to begin with," Steve said. "Committing even a small tactical unit to a strike against the enemy encampment would leave huge gaps in our defense."

"All it takes is one," Jean said, and gestured with her chin across the ravine. "One person who can poison food and water supplies. Who can slip among sleeping tents and release a nerve agent. If they split their forces — and I agree, it makes sense from their perspective — then I mean to let Kel wipe out subdivisions in their entirety, one at a time."

A chill crawled down the back of Steve's neck. Back in the war, there had been exactly one side that made a habit of using gas, and it sure as hell hadn't been the Allies.

"I didn't know we had chemical weapons in our arsenal," he said.

"We do," Jean said. "Kel developed the nerve agent and the delivery system for the camp takeover. We used it on the guards in the mine."

Before Steve could decide how he wanted to respond, the explosives team emerged from the forest on the other side of the ravine and started across the bridge. Kel was walking backwards, unravelling a large spool of wire as she went. This was obviously the line that led to the detonator.

Jean came to her feet and, unasked, offered Steve a hand up. He swallowed some wounded pride and took it.

"One more thing," he said. "If we're putting our backs to the mountains, then a large force couldn't easily get around behind us, but a small one could. The first thing I would do once I'd landed is send a contingent of my best people out on a wide loop to stage an attack from the rear."

"I'll remember that."

There was still a great deal of wire left over once the explosives team had crossed the bridge. Kel set the spool on the ground and pulled her belt knife. Tony doubled the wire into a loop, which she severed. Then Alisha handed him… well, as far as Steve could tell, it was a thin, six-inch stick. Tony pressed the end of the stick to the freshly cut end of the wire — the _green_ wire, of course — and the two pieces fused together. Then he handed the completed mechanism over to Jean.

"Before you start," Tony said, "Can I just say again how unnecessary this is? We don't need to run more explosives tests. The explosives have been tested. In spite of the mountains of red tape heaped upon me by the local government—"

"Yes, letting me know beforehand when and where," Jean said. "How onerous."

"—I already did this. Explosive yield is measured and confirmed. Now, I can definitely see you being twitchy about the trigger-vine, but there are ways to test that without wasting five hours' worth of TNT production at the same time."

"Tony," Jean said, "I want to blow up a tree. Can we please blow up the tree?"

He shrugged expansively. "Fine. But if the local environmentalist groups start coming after us for destruction of endangered species? All on you."

Jean gave a quiet chuckle and turned to Kel. "Any special instructions?"

"It's like the ones I made for the mine," Kel said. "Break the stick. This starts the reaction."

"How long?"

"It's a chemical response, not nerves or electricity. Like the way light travels along the vines." She waved her hand vaguely. "Your time units make no sense, I can never remember. A pause long enough to notice."

"Can we see the target from here?"

Kel pointed across the ravine. "Yes. It's the tall one over there. With the leaves."

Jean gave a faint sigh. "Sometimes I don't know why I ask questions."

She snapped the stick.

Nothing happened. Which was as predicted.

They waited, and nothing continued to happen. It happened for quite a long time.

Jean discreetly cleared her throat.

"If there's a problem, it's not with my detonator," Tony said immediately.

"It's not with my trigger," Kel retorted.

"Maybe you can't grow the wires this long," Alisha suggested.

"Do you want me to go over there and check the connection?" Spider-Man asked.

" _No_ ," several people said, and _then_ the bomb went off.

Even from a hundred yards away, it was a damned impressive bang. One of the treetops that made up the canopy — the tall one with the leaves, in fact — gave a sharp jerk, and slowly toppled over.

There was a respectful pause.

"No one's going to notice what we did, are they?" Spider-Man asked.

Tony looked at him. "You bring this up _now_?"

"No, it should be fine," Kel said. "The garrison sometimes sends out practice missions over long distances, but they wouldn't come here. Not interesting enough."

"Kel and I discussed the risk of discovery earlier," Jean added. "It's a valid concern, but I'm persuaded that the chances are low."

"Congratulations," Tony said to Jean. "You blew up a tree. Happy?"

"Yes, thank you," she replied. "You can go ahead with setting the remaining charges."

"Okay, kid, you're up. Alisha, you've got the schematics?"

"Right here," she said, and retrieved a sheaf of pages from one of the saddlebags.

The three of them had plainly worked out their plan in advance. Tools and devices were unpacked and transferred to Spider-Man's custody, he being the natural choice to handle the climbing. The bombs were housed in metal boxes that were surprisingly small, given the punch they packed, but then that had to be Tony's doing.

Amidst several exhortations to be careful, Spider-Man began his climb down into the underpinnings of the bridge. Tony and Alisha followed his progress from the deck.

Steve picked up the discarded wire from the test, and rolled it between his fingers. Although it was green like a vine, its texture much more closely resembled plastic than plant matter.

"If we're planning to leave these wires in place for months, is there a risk that some animal is going to gnaw through them?"

"No, the outer layer is designed to be very tough, and also to taste bad," Kel said. "They are meant to last a long time in this environment."

Her attention drifted to the opposite side of the ravine. "I have to check something," she said to Jean. "Might take some time. Leave without me if you want."

She took off at a run.

Steve asked Jean, "Is that something we should be worried about?"

"Doubtful," Jean said. "She takes risks with herself — more so than I'm comfortable with, sometimes — but not with Alisha and Aaron. If there were a threat headed our way, she would have been a lot more specific."

This was the first time that Steve had seen Kel and Jean work in tandem. (Like most everything else, this was his own fault.) They had the easy rapport of two people who never had to question whether they were on the same team. That sort of thing didn't just spring up overnight.

Nor did Jean's confidence in Kel's ability to poison enemy soldiers five hundred at a time, for that matter.

Jean gave Steve a polite nod and headed back toward the tethered horse. He supposed that the most prudent course of action would be to follow her, have a seat again, and wait for the explosives team to finish their assignment. But he decided to take a little break from prudence, and have a look around instead.

Steve ducked beneath the anchor cable and very carefully made his way along the side of the bridge, down toward the ravine. There were no trees this close to the edge, only low-lying scrub and some loose gravel that shifted and slid beneath his feet. The ground sloped down on a steep but manageable incline before abruptly dropping away.

He inched his way carefully along until he was looking at the rushing river far below. It was at least a hundred-foot drop. (Maybe Clint's remark about cliffs was still rankling him a little, in which case… all right, he wasn't entirely clear on the logic of repudiating the statement by standing at the edge of a cliff, but there he was anyway.)

The walkway of the bridge was bordered by a tall wood fence that hid Tony and Alisha from view; from beneath the deck, occasional flashes of beige marked Spider-Man's progress as he traveled back and forth along the underside of the structure. They were, of course, running the trigger lines back to the far side of the ravine, and each trip took a few minutes. Steve watched until the effort of keeping his balance on the steep slope began to burn in his thighs.

A foot deliberately scuffed the ground behind him. Shortly thereafter, Jean appeared in his peripheral vision, carefully picking her way down the hill to join him by the edge.

She leaned forward and took a good look at the drop below. "I don't know how deep the river is," she said, "or what lives there. Someone who knew how to hit the water correctly could perhaps survive the fall, assuming no underwater obstacles or man-eating fish, but I certainly wouldn't want to try it."

"Not too long ago, I wouldn't have thought twice about a fall like that," Steve said.

She gave a quiet hum of acknowledgment, and fell silent for a time. He sensed that she had something further to say, but she hadn't quite settled the details.

"By the time I finally get to go home," Jean said after a while, "I will have spent two and a half years in this place. Kel dropped into my life almost three years before that. When I made the decision, all those years ago, to respond to the portals the way that I did, every piece of what followed became my responsibility. The parts I foresaw and the parts I did not. Every human life. All of it is on my shoulders. I think you of all people can appreciate that one does not relinquish such a thing lightly."

"Yes," Steve said.

"Steve, there's something I've been reluctant to…" She trailed off, and gave a faint, self-deprecating smile. "All right. When the war begins, are you prepared to take orders from me?"

Steve was slack-jawed for what felt like ages before he blurted out, "If I say no, are you prepared to take orders from me?"

"No."

It wasn't said unkindly, but it left no room for debate. Steve turned back to face the ravine again.

"This has nothing to do with your physical condition," Jean added, improbably. "My answer would be the same even if you were at full strength. Avengers or no Avengers, the ultimate responsibility is still mine, and I cannot hand it over."

"You're in charge of the civilians," Steve said. "No one disputes that. They're going to need a strong leader to keep them all calm and organized. But you can't do that and expect to direct combat in the field."

"I've been setting up a backup administration since before the takeover," Jean replied. "I am not essential in camp on a day-to-day basis. I _am_ essential on the front lines."

It wasn't the first time Jean had grouped herself with the other combatants on their defense force. Steve had heard that she'd spearheaded (as it were) the camp takeover, and defeated the commandant in single combat, taking — depending on who told the story — anywhere from a scratch to a life-threatening injury in the process. She had combat skills and she had nerve, but surviving one symbolic fight was a far cry from facing down a charging army. Steve might have tentatively put her in the field. He'd never once considered giving her command.

"Look, you're smart and you're organized—"

"How nice, you read my eighth-grade report card."

"—but you're not a fighter. Not like this."

"Correction," she said. "You've never seen me fight."

His legs were truly starting to burn now. The ride, while far easier than walking, hadn't been entirely without effort, and now this ridiculous hill was sapping what little strength he'd had left. He should never have come down here in the first place, and now he was trapped on this cliff and trapped in this conversation. Only one of those problems could be fixed by going on the offensive, but it was all he had.

"You're right," Steve said to Jean. "You did take responsibility for a national crisis. You decided that you and your team could handle it better than anyone else, and now you have to _prove_ it, don't you? How much of this is about being the best person for the job, and how much is about ego?"

She didn't flinch. She never flinched. "I hope it doesn't disappoint you to hear that I've asked myself that question already," Jean replied in a tone gone chilly. "Of course there's an element of ego in play, but my self-image is unimportant when weighed against other people's lives. Kel backs me, and that is not a favor she accords lightly. If she believed that you were more qualified, I would step down. She doesn't. Nor do I."

If she were heated, if she were bombastic, Steve could have matched her blow for blow. But that cold dismissal passed clean through the anger that was the only shield he had left, and bit deep into every open wound.

( _4F - unfit for service_. Right back where he'd started, like he'd never really left.)

"Before I got here, I spent a few hours with your rear guard team," Steve said. "When it comes to the Avengers, they aren't exactly shy with their opinions. In fact, I caught a reference to 'failure of leadership'. Those wouldn't have been your words, would they?"

"If I recall correctly, it was Kiran's turn of phrase," Jean replied.

"But your sentiment."

Her jaw tightened — finally, an overt emotional response. "I took issue with the events that transpired in Germany, but I don't think that's relevant here."

"Really? There has to be some reason you're dismissing my experience."

"I don't dismiss it at all. I simply insist upon directing it."

"Combat situations are fluid. They can turn in a moment. Decisions have to be made rapidly—"

"And via an unambiguous chain of command. Yes."

"—by a qualified field commander, _not_ an amateur on a power trip."

Steve watched her bite back a heated retort, and felt a vicious stab of triumph.

"The most significant decision I've made so far," Jean said acridly, "was to rescue you. As I recall, you cited the fact that I reached a different conclusion than you did as evidence that I was unqualified to decide. So perhaps we are neither of us blameless when it comes to ego."

Steve was _more_ than happy to fight about which one of them was more arrogant. But then, goddamn her, she cheated.

"I'm sitting down," Jean said, and matched action to words. "Perhaps you'll consider doing the same before your legs give out and dump you off this cliff."

"It would solve some of your problems, wouldn't it?" Steve waited a full five seconds before allowing his aching legs to buckle.

The flare of anger had lost its momentum, and they lapsed into silence again. Steve watched Spider-Man make another upside-down run to the far end of the bridge. The explosives team was more than halfway along now.

"It's remarkable how abstract principles seem to founder in the face of…" Jean paused, and gave a quiet chuckle. "In the face of the Steve Rogers experience. I believe that trust has to be earned. You don't know me. You have doubts. It's reasonable, and I shouldn't have let you needle me into taking it personally."

"Was that an apology, or an accusation?"

"Let's call it a clarification," Jean said. "When I began, I never could have predicted this particular outcome, but the unpredictability itself told me that I needed to… reshape myself into a more formidable weapon. Kel and I had years to prepare, and more specifically, _she_ had years to prepare _me_. Whatever it is you think I don't know about combat — the pace, the physical skills, the way that fear can paralyze unless it's tamed, how adrenaline compresses an hour into a minute and stretches a second into a lifetime — I'm willing to bet you're mistaken.

"And if we turned it around and asked you to prove your credentials to me, I might mention that you have never encountered either the Mjentur or the Nyth before. You have never fought a war with essentially medieval weaponry before. You haven't lived in this place and learned its hazards, you haven't had years to make contingency plans, and you have no idea what a Brenith soldier can do."

She said it gently, and she said it _to_ him, not _over_ him. The words still stung, but… differently.

"So where does that leave us?" Steve asked.

"With time still," Jean said. "We'll get the hang of each other, Steve. If nothing else, we'll figure out how to disagree constructively. I imagine we'll get some practice at it. For now, though, I'm heading back up. There's a side-trip I want to run while we're out here. Do you want a hand with the hill?"

"No, I'm fine."

She left, and Steve was alone with his thoughts.

From among those thoughts, one that soon came rising to the surface was the fact that he almost certainly could not climb back up to level ground on his own.

He reached over to rub the patch on his arm again. Aaron had warned him that it wasn't a quick fix, and sure enough, while he'd felt a little better than usual that morning, the fatigue had now returned with a vengeance. The whole thing was indignity piled on absurdity.

("You're not getting enough nutrition," Aaron had said. "It's a major factor in your exhaustion. The food here is good enough for the average human, but even if some of your enhancements have been suppressed, you still run in a higher gear than most of us. And I think you've been skipping meals.")

The patch — a broad-spectrum, slow-release vitamin supplement — was one component of their strategy to get his basic physical requirements back under control, the other component being Steve's agreement to stop doing things like skipping lunch because he was feeling too sorry for himself to talk to anyone. They would look at other contributing factors, as Aaron had nicely put it, once his blood tests started coming back within normal ranges.

Skipping lunch due to being stranded at the bottom of a fifteen-foot hill was probably also contraindicated, but Steve wasn't sure he had a choice in the matter. The bridge walkway was well above his head, offering no handholds. What little shrubbery was in arm's reach would probably come right out of the ground if he pulled on it. Walking back up under his own power was out of the question, but maybe if he lay down and crawled—

"What the hell are you doing?"

Steve looked up. It was Tony.

"Enjoying the scenery," he said.

Tony folded his arms and studied him critically. "You're stuck, aren't you."

"I'm not _stuck_."

"You're stuck. For _fuck's_ sake, Rogers." And he started down the damned hill.

Steve groaned. This was absolutely the last time he ever let Jean invite him on a day trip.

Gravel tumbled over the edge of the cliff as Tony skidded his way down. "All right, let's go," he said, and crouched beside Steve. "Just don't expect me to give you a piggy-back ride."

"I didn't ask for your help," Steve said stiffly.

"Yes, I _know_ ," Tony snapped, "but one time — _one time_ — can we _please_ do things the way I think we should do them?"

Maybe Jean had sapped the fight out of him. Steve's mouth snapped shut. Without another word, he shifted around to face the hill, and put his arm over Tony's shoulders. Tony's arm went around his waist, and they both held on while Tony put his back into it and got them to their feet.

(It was the first time they'd touched each other nonviolently since… Steve couldn't actually remember.)

Tony climbed. Steve did what he could not to topple them over.

At the top of the hill, Steve fully expected to be dumped on his ass, but instead Tony let him down gently before stepping away and dusting off his hands.

"There," he said. "No charge."

Gruffly, Steve said, "Thanks."

Tony turned to go. Paused.

"I shouldn't have taken a swing at you that day," he said, and turned back partway so that Steve was viewing him in profile. "It was… a loss of control. Shouldn't have happened. I'm working on it. Steps are being taken. Sorry. But also," he said quickly, "I'm not ready to do _this_ yet." He pointed back and forth between them. "Turns out I've got a whole backlog of issues to sort out, and while I'm sure you're disappointed not to make it to the top of the list—" He broke off, and pressed his lips together. "Not yet. Eventually — it's not like we're going anywhere — but for the moment… neutral corners. Best I can do."

He fled just as abruptly as he'd arrived.

That was _not_ the Tony Stark that Steve had thought he knew. For Tony to be so nervous, hesitant — not to mention _apologetic_ — was unprecedented. Steve was baffled by the man he'd just seen. Another entry on the list of items to be mulled over.

He did eventually recover enough strength to pick himself off the ground and move back to his original spot by the anchor cable, and Jean returned from the forest not long after. She had one of the smaller saddlebags over her shoulder, which bulged with what turned out to be several red, fist-sized pieces of fruit.

"This is one of the very few local species that we can safely eat," she said to Steve. "A small break from routine."

Another of the saddlebags turned out to contain a collection of mismatched knives, one for each of the human members of the party. Jean set these down next to the fruit, then began the process of rehydrating servings of dried grains into the usual camp rations.

Steve picked up a knife and one of the fruit. It had a hard skin that reminded him of a pomegranate, but inside was a light-colored flesh not unlike a pear. He took a cautious bite, and found it surprisingly tasty.

The explosives team was on their way back across the bridge. He and Jean would only have a few more minutes to themselves.

"I've been thinking about what you said," Steve told her. "You have your team, and I have mine. Knowing that they're in the right hands is just as important to me as it is to you."

She nodded. "That's fair."

"I know we have the same goals. I'm not ready to… answer the question yet, but I hope we can learn to trust each other. I'm willing to work at it, if you are."

Jean's expressions tended to be quite restrained. She was not unlike Natasha in that way: her emotions weren't put on display, but had to be gleaned from modest cues. The smile she gave him was little more than a slight upturning of the mouth and a creasing about the eyes, but Steve sensed a warmth in it that he hadn't gotten from her before.

"Sounds good to me," she said.

The rest of the team joined them shortly thereafter, and Steve stayed quiet while the lunch break happened around him. Tony was back to pretending that Steve didn't exist, and Steve wasn't going to press him on it. Spider-Man chatted happily about anything and everything, while Alisha continued to work at whatever calculations had absorbed her attention earlier that morning.

Not one of them said a word when Steve, self-consciously following orders, took off his jacket, rolled back his sleeve, and swapped out the patch on his arm.

"So, are we supposed to be worried that Kel isn't back yet?" Spider-Man asked when their picnic was done.

"She told me that she might be late, and to leave without her," Jean said.

"Are you going to?"

"No, of course not. We'll wait. But no, I'm not worried."

In fact, by Steve's estimate, they waited for almost an hour, but it turned out to be a worthwhile investment. When Kel finally returned, she was in the company of the camp's other two horses, along with two members of the survey team, one of whom was Sam.

The riders dismounted, and the two groups converged on each other. Steve didn't know the woman with Sam, but Tony greeted her cheerfully and supplied a name — Gabriela.

"You found a site?" Jean asked once the pleasantries were done.

"Yeah, we found a site," Sam said. "The plant ladies are testing their seeds, the Oregon guys are planning the new camp layout, and Vision's sticking around for extra security. Gab and I were on our way to give you an update, maybe see about starting up some lumber shipments, when guess what happened?"

Jean winced. "You heard an explosion."

"We heard a huge damn explosion!"

Spider-Man said quietly, "Told you someone was going to notice."

"The two of us were halfway convinced the _war_ had started," Sam continued, still aggrieved. "If Kel hadn't shown up when she did, we might have bolted back to the beta site and sent Vision to figure out what the hell was happening."

"Apologies for the fright," Jean said. "I insisted on running one final demolitions test before we wired the bridge with explosives. Obviously I didn't expect you to be on your way back at that precise moment."

"I'm just glad it wasn't an actual emergency," Gabriela said. "Are you heading back to camp soon?"

"Yes, we're done here," Jean replied. "Just let us collect our gear and we'll join you for the rest of the trip."

The bulk of the crowd scattered again, leaving Steve alone with Sam.

"Hey, man," Sam said, and there was some concern now visible in his eyes. "How are things?"

Steve drew a breath, and slowly let it out again. "It's been kind of rough, actually," he said. "But… it could be starting to get a little better. Maybe — after we get back to camp, if you're sticking around for a while — I can fill you in."

"Yeah, no problem," Sam said. His gaze shifted in Tony's direction. "How are you and…"

"Neutral corners," Steve said. "That's as far as we've gotten."

"Well, at least you're stopped punching each other. It's a start, right?"

It _was_ a start, at that. So was his tentative understanding with Jean, and so were his discussions with Aaron. New beginnings; small steps. It would take time. But for the first time, that sentiment seemed like less of an empty platitude, and more of a genuine promise.

 


	28. Chapter 28

The trip back to camp gave Sam and Gabriela time to fill Jean in on their recent mission.

"We found the New York and Champaign portal sites," Sam said, "and our best guess at the Denver one, though it's pretty overgrown. They form a line headed northwest, at roughly one-mile intervals. Now, who knows if that pattern's going to hold, but if it does, the new campsite is about two hours north of where our ride home will show up."

"That sounds like it's getting up into the mountains," Jean said.

"Yeah, that's one of the reasons we chose it," said Gab. "It's a small, flattish region tucked in between the rocks. The only way to find it is to stumble on it, like we did."

"Vision's sticking around a few days more, just to make sure the barrier works and we're not on a chimpanzee migration route or some damned thing," Sam added. "After that, he'll get to work on making your maps."

"Excellent," Jean said. "I'll make a trip out there myself in the near future. For now, we'll continue to extend the travel corridor from this side. Thank you both."

They reached camp just before suppertime, and Sam took a much-needed detour to the showers. When he got back, Steve was sitting with the rest of the Avengers at their usual table. Sam made his way through the chow line and joined them.

Steve looked worse than he had nine days ago. He was visibly drained from the day's excursion. His face was more pale and sunken in than Sam remembered, and he'd lost some weight. Sam hoped to hell he wasn't the only person who'd noticed this stuff, because if he was, then the medical staff had been seriously falling down on the job.

However, there was nothing Sam could do about it right then. Except for Vision, the whole team was together, and they also wanted to get a report on the mission. Sam spent most of the meal fielding questions about the beta site and the forest beyond the ravine.

Then, after supper, Steve said, "I had a conversation with Jean today. Some things came up that I think we should discuss privately."

Which was how Sam, Steve, Nat, Clint and Wanda found themselves scrunched into Steve's little cabin that evening. Steve sank down onto his cot with obvious relief, and leaned over to pour some of the activator fluid on the roots of his overhead light. Clint, who was now walking with a cane and a slight limp, took the chair, and the rest of them arranged themselves in the remaining space as best they could.

Without preamble, Steve announced, "Jean wants to run the team. In the field."

"No," Clint deadpanned. "Boss-Lady? I'm shocked."

Natasha asked, "How did you respond?"

Steve gave that wry half-smile of his. "I called her arrogant," he said. "Then she called me arrogant. We argued about who was more arrogant. Then she left to pick fruit, and I got stuck at the bottom of a hill. The question was not resolved."

"Ah. And here I was worried that something constructive might have happened."

Sam supposed he had no business being as surprised as he was. Jean had been giving the orders from the beginning. There'd been no reason to think she would change her tune when the war started. But to hear it stated so bluntly was putting his hackles up.

Clint said, "Well, we know she's got Kel on her side. Stark, too. And wherever Stark goes, the spider-kid goes."

Wanda looked at him. "Are we really taking sides again?"

"No," Natasha said sharply. "We're not."

"Look, I'm not…" Steve paused, regrouped. "I didn't react well. After everything that's happened… it threw me. But a power struggle isn't good for anyone, particularly the civilians. She wants to be in the field, and she wants to run the defense. I'm not saying that's the way things will turn out, but at the very least, we need to look for ways to work with each other, not against each other."

"Why, Steve," Natasha said, "what a calm, measured, and rational position."

"Thank you," Steve said, in the same tone of voice. "It's something I'm trying."

Sam was surprised, too. Given what had happened the _last_ time someone had suggested that Steve be answerable to an external agency… But then, maybe that was the point. Maybe Steve, too, was looking for ways to repair the damage from past mistakes.

Besides, Jean wasn't the UN, and she sure as hell wasn't Thaddeus Ross.

"I'll say this for her," Sam said. "Jean's got the rest of the camp squarely behind her. They've all seen exactly how much blood, sweat and tears she's prepared to spill in their defense."

He took a quick look around the rest of the group, and judging by their expressions — except for Natasha, whose only setting was 'inscrutable' — they hadn't heard this story. Which suddenly made him feel like he was breaking a confidence by telling it, since after all he'd only found out by accident.

But an event that had occurred in front of a hundred witnesses wasn't exactly private. Briefly, Sam outlined what he'd learned, both from Jean and from discreet conversations with some of the Denver crew, including Gabriela: that an object lesson had been threatened by the camp management early on, and Jean had refused to let it fall on anyone else's head. That she'd picked a fight with a guard and spent five days hanging broken and bloody from a whipping post, restored to health by Kel each night only to be tortured all over again the next morning.

"She took that for them, and they all know it," he said. "If we set ourselves up against her publicly, I'm pretty sure we'll lose."

"Look, I got no issues working with Jean," Clint said. "She's trained, she knows the territory—"

"She took you down without breaking a sweat," Natasha interjected.

"—she's kept Stark in line for nearly a year, and we did crash her party. But I'm not sure I'm ready to hand her the reins."

"Neither am I," said Steve. "I just wanted you all to know that the discussion had happened. However we end up resolving this, I have no intentions of undermining her or shutting her out. Agreed?"

Sam added his nod to the general consensus.

The conversation shifted to the topic of battle plans, and Sam learned that Jean was anticipating an opposing force of as many as _two goddamned thousand_. He wondered if that number had actually come from somewhere, or if it was just the upper limit on her imagination.

They didn't get time to dig into the details, though. Steve was visibly exhausted and fading by the minute. Natasha just barely beat Sam to the punch.

"How about we pick this up tomorrow?" she said. "We've all got a lot to think about."

Steve didn't even kick up a fuss. The group filed out, but Sam lingered.

"I won't keep you long," he said to Steve. "I just wanted to catch up for a second."

"No, I'm glad you stayed," Steve replied, and gestured toward the chair. "After all, I did promise to fill you in."

Piece by piece, amidst pauses and digressions, Steve walked him through the events of the last couple days. By the end of it, Sam was basically satisfied that Aaron was doing adequate triage on the problem.

"I've got these patches now," Steve said. "Apparently, similar issues have come up once or twice before. Not everyone takes to the food here right away. Aaron tells me that there will be blood tests and supplements until we get the balance right."

"And you'll try not to skip any more meals," said Sam, who had not overlooked that detail.

Steve looked down sheepishly. "And that."

"Have you talked about where to go from there?"

"A little," Steve said. He hesitated. "If it's all right, I think I'd rather not—"

"Not a problem," Sam said promptly. Two things he'd realized about Steve Rogers within moments of their first meeting: that he would far rather be Steve's friend than his counsellor, and that Steve was in desperate need of both. He'd picked a role and never once regretted it. Neither of them would benefit if he tried to make the switch now. "As long as you feel like there's forward progress to be made."

"Yeah. Aaron and I are… discussing some things."

"Good to hear."

Steve leaned back a little further in the bed. "I've been thinking about what happened back on Earth," he said quietly. "Everything I did… I had to do. Or I thought I did. But a lot of people got hurt. Rhodes. Tony. We have to do better this time, Sam."

"Yeah, I hear you," Sam said. "Working with Vision out there was… well, I liked it whole a lot better than I liked fighting him."

Steve gave a faint chuckle.

"So you think you and Jean can come to terms?"

"What do you think of the idea?" Steve countered.

Sam exhaled slowly and leaned his elbows on his knees. There was still a certain spike of defensiveness — a touch of _who the hell do you think you are_ that he had yet to shake — but he'd also felt that way about Kel at first, and she'd turned out to have more than enough skills to back up her confidence.

However. It was one thing to let Jean set up shift rotations and send out reconnaissance missions. Taking orders from her in the field was another thing entirely.

"I think Jean deserves a seat at the table," he said. "Beyond that, we need to find out more about who she is. That evasive routine of hers isn't going to cut it for much longer."

"Agreed."

"I also think there's no chance she's got combat experience on par with yours, and if she's serious about doing what's best for the camp, she'll recognize that."

Steve's head tilted noncommittally.

If Sam thought about it from Jean's point of view, he could _almost_ see it. Before she'd gone through the portal, the most recent piece of news she'd heard about the Avengers had almost certainly concerned the fight in Leipzig. Combine that with the undeniable fact that they'd blundered into her neat and tidy plans and rendered them a whole lot less neat and tidy, and it wasn't completely unreasonable for her to have doubts. Jean needed to take a more realistic view of her capabilities, but at the same time, maybe the team needed to work on rehabilitating its image a little.

"Tell you what," Sam said. "I think I'll stick around camp for a while. Let someone else take a turn at the jellyfish and the komodo dragons and the lizard-horses with wings. We'll see what we can do about building up some team cohesion."

Steve smiled. "Glad to hear it."

 

* * *

 

Natasha intercepted Sam after he finally left Steve's cabin, and asked him a follow-up question. His answer was approximately what she'd expected, and more to the point, it was exactly what she needed.

 _Gotcha_.

"Does that mean something to you?" Sam asked her.

She favored him with a smile. "It doesn't add up, Sam. It never did."

Now that she had confirmation, she needed to think through the implications. Jean's people hadn't outright lied, just omitted and misdirected. But the consequences were going to stretch beyond this particular crisis, just as she'd feared.

She'd promised to tell Tony when she had something solid, and she would… when the time was right. The immediate situation was stable. The importance of that couldn't be overemphasized. Before the real threats began, all of them — Natasha's people and Jean's — needed to take this time to form themselves into a unified defense.

No, she was going to hang onto this for the moment, until she knew exactly how she wanted to use it.

 

* * *

 

The first time Pepper checked her watch, she attempted to be discreet about it. Ditto the second time. Each of the subsequent times grew increasingly blatant. The gestures were having no impact on the rant in progress.

Tony had told her various things about Thaddeus Ross over the years, most of them not repeatable in polite company. This was the first time Pepper had met the man, and so far, he was living down to his reputation.

Instead of looking at her watch again, Pepper took a quick look at the rest of her captive audience. Rhodey, on duty even when he was off duty, was sitting up straight, hands folded on the conference table, listening to the harangue with every indication of polite attention. Someone would have to know him well to catch the irritation in the set of his mouth. Next to him, Jane had her head propped up on her fist and looked bored out of her skull. At the far end of the table, Maria was openly texting.

The team had accomplished step one: evacuating the target zone. Step two, in coordination with city officials, had been a press conference. Jane had read a brief statement, and more critically, she'd made herself visible. Pepper had wanted no doubt in the public's mind as to who had been responsible for saving them. It had embarrassed the task force, yes, but it had also galvanized public opinion on Jane's behalf. Going forward, there could be no excuse for retaliating against her or shutting her out.

Ross knew it, too. The only thing he could do now was yell.

However, Pepper had other items on her agenda that evening. "Excuse me, Mr. Secretary," she said, and watched him turn an even more alarming shade of puce. "What exactly is your priority here? Because if it's to protect American lives from an imminent threat, I would think that—"

"And _I_ would think, Ms. Potts, that you would confine your attention to the boardroom and leave matters of national security to the professionals," he snarled back. "But since you've seen fit to involve yourself, you get to experience the consequences. _I want your source._ If I have to, I'll tear Stark Industries apart to get him."

"You seem to be misunderstanding the meaning of the word 'anonymous'," she replied, with all the ice she could muster. "There is, by design, no way to backtrack the information we received."

It was the one lie they'd told, for the protection of everyone but particularly Jane. The meeting back at Stark Tower had never happened. Peter and Kiran were simply an anonymous source, who presumably had been in communication with the Avengers at the same time as they'd been relaying their data to Pepper.

"And who cares who they are?" Jane added. "They were _right_. Their readings were critical in my refinement of the target zone. And we're wasting valuable time here, by the way. We need to pick up the portal's trail _now_ before we lose it again."

"The task force is going to confiscate your work—"

"Well, they might have a tough time with that, since I've already backed up my data on multiple servers in countries outside US jurisdiction," Jane said cheerfully. "But I'm more than happy to email them a copy. And is there any chance that we can fight about this another time? Based on the decay curves I'm seeing, the energy source behind the portals has enough juice left for one more event, and that's it. If anyone gets taken this time, or doesn't come back through, they're gone for good."

"In other words, accurate targeting is critical," Pepper said, "and none of your people have gotten close."

Ross folded his arms and loomed over Jane from across the table. "Can you stop it?" he asked.

Jane blinked. "What do you mean?"

"Can you block the portal?"

"Why would I do that?" she asked. "There are over a hundred people on the other side. They'd all be stranded!"

"And how many more people will we lose if it opens again and you don't have the location?" Ross shot back. "What happens the next time a hostile alien force decides to use this technology to attack us? There is a gaping hole in this country's security — _that_ is my priority. So I'll ask you again. Can you stop the final portal?"

For the first time that day, Jane looked somewhat chagrined. She considered carefully before replying, "No. I don't think it can be done. Not with Earth-based technology, and definitely not in less than twenty-four hours."

"Why am I not surprised?" Ross said with a sneer, and Pepper had seldom wanted so badly to ruin a man's career as she did at that moment. "Representatives of the task force will be in contact with you," he continued, condescension dripping from every word. "You will provide them with your data and all relevant research. You will make yourself available for further consultations as needed. And _all_ of you will refrain from further interference."

Pepper felt her jaw drop. "The only expert you've got who can actually track this thing, and you're leaving her behind?"

"If your 'anonymous sources' were able to supply you with critical information without ever making direct contact, I'm confident that our field teams can do the same," Ross said.

He turned as if to leave, but then paused and turned back, because a man like that always had a parting shot. "And you, Ms. Potts, might want to rethink your dedication to protecting the anonymity of an individual or individuals who are known to have colluded with a group of international fugitives," he said. "I _will_ find them. I'd hate to have to resort to measures that could be considered… extreme."

The door shut behind him. Pepper barely heard it over the ringing in her ears. White-hot dread pooled in her stomach.

Ross knew.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Rhodey turn to her, obvious concern on his face. "Pepper, what—"

"Not here," Maria cut in. "Let's get back to the tower before someone changes their mind and has us arrested."

Maria handled the arrangements. Pepper was silent on the drive back, remembering.

_"Probably we all hope that it'll be safer someday," Peter said. "That turning out to be enhanced doesn't put someone's life in danger. But right now it isn't safe. It just… isn't. So whatever else we do, we don't tell each other's secrets."_

_A pleasant if somewhat generic sentiment, except that Peter looked straight at her when he said it, and Pepper_ knew _._

_She pulled him aside, and as soon as they were alone, she asked, "Is there something in particular that you want to tell me?"_

_Quietly, respectfully, Peter said, "Extremis."_

_Pepper went rigid. No one knew that._ No one _. She and Tony were supposed to be the last living people who knew what had been done to her._

_She had to close her eyes and calm the fire down before she could reply. (Tony had solved the chemistry problem, but there was a part that his equations couldn't model. The fire was under her control. It wouldn't consume her. But it always wanted to burn.)_

_"How?" she asked._

_"Okay," Peter said, and took a deep breath. "After… the_ thing _, right — well, Jean pointed out that… not to be completely gross or anything, but like, the condition of the bodies? Wasn't great for accurate counting? And no one really knew how many Extremis soldiers there'd been in the first place? So she wondered if some of them might still be around somewhere. She dug into it a bit, and long story short, we found one. This guy, he was there at the big fight, but early on he sort of… saw which way the wind was blowing, you know? And he bailed. But he knew what Killian had done to you._

_"So we looked into it — Jean and me and some people — and we learned that the formula could maybe be stabilized, but almost definitely couldn't be removed. So. For a while there, Jean was thinking about getting in touch. If it had seemed like you needed help or something, she would've. But here you are, going along all awesome and not on fire and stuff, and we figured, if anyone could have found a way to fix the instability, it was Iron Man, and that's what must have happened."_

_"Who else knows?"_

_"Me and Jean," Peter said. "That's it, I swear. Kiran doesn't know. They don't even know that there's anything to_ know _, you know?"_

 _That wasn't nearly good enough. How dare they know this? How dare they pry? Who the hell_ was _this Jean, to insinuate herself so brazenly into crises both global and private?_

 _"I can guess, kind of, what you might be thinking?" Peter continued. "You're keeping this a secret, and of course you've got a good reason for it, and now all of a sudden here's these random people, right? But the thing is, you had help. Most people don't. These things happen, not for any good reason but just because the world is freakin'_ weird _these days, and afterward the person is just… alone. Jean's got kind of a word-of-mouth thing going by now, but yeah, some of what we do is track down incidents and unexplained whatevers and find people, and if they need help, we try to help them. But it's your business, and if you don't want us in it, then we stay out of it. Those are the rules."_

_The fire was dimming again. The shock was wearing off. She knew how lucky she'd been to have had Tony's help. There'd been plenty of sleepless nights she'd spent wondering: if Tony hadn't been able to stabilize the formula, how long would she have survived? How many more might she have killed?_

_"What happened to the Extremis soldier?" Pepper asked._

_Peter squirmed and looked away. "He didn't want any more… anything. Experiments or changes or anything. Just to be left alone. I think Jean knows how it ended, but I don't. And we never found any more, but… there's no way to know, is there?"_

She should have seen the warning for what it was. Her secret wasn't going to stay that way for much longer. If Ross knew, then he had all the leverage over her and over Tony that he could ever need.

They stepped off the tower elevator into the rec room, and Pepper took a moment to mentally center herself. One crisis at a time. First, she had to get Tony back.

There were still some finger foods left out from the group meeting several hours ago. Maria grabbed herself a handful of crackers and flopped down on one of the couches. Whatever she'd been doing on her phone absorbed her attention again. Pepper followed her more slowly, keeping pace with Rhodey as he leaned a hand on her shoulder for support, until he too had taken a seat. Then she turned to Jane.

"I suppose that went as well as we could have expected," she said. "Are you all right?"

"Oh, sure," Jane replied. "Odin once compared me to a goat. Since then, condescension from Earth guys falls pretty flat."

It was good to be reminded sometimes that other people's lives were even weirder than hers.

"Maria, how are our friends doing?"

"The ones we've never seen before in our lives and have only communicated with through anonymous channels?" she said. "They're fine. Peter and I are playing _Words with Friends_."

"I assume they're going to keep chasing the signal," Rhodey said. "They've got a couple hours' head start — hopefully that'll be enough to keep them off the radar awhile. We're coming up on our last chance to bring our people home, so… Jane, what needs doing?"

"The portal can't be stopped," Jane said. "I'm not wrong about that. It's going to follow its pre-programmed path until it locks onto its last target. The best we can hope to do is what we just did: stay with it until we get the target zone narrowed down to a region that can be evacuated." She frowned. "It's just…"

"Just what?"

"Well, Ross wasn't wrong, either. It's a risk. The portal hones in on heavy population densities. If my calculations are off by even a few hundred yards, hundreds of people could be lost forever."

Pepper asked, "What other choice is there?"

"There is one thought I had," she said slowly, "but I need to run simulations, and I'll need to build… I'm not even sure yet. It might work, but I can't do it from here."

Odd, how this day was coming full circle. "As it happens," Pepper said, "I know a place upstate that has some excellent lab facilities."

 

* * *

 

Tony sat up on the table, and cautiously ran his fingers along his left cheekbone. Where the thick burn scar had sat for all those months, now there was only flat, unbroken skin.

"Thanks," he signed to Aaron.

"You're welcome," Aaron replied, and gave him a hand down. "I only have about ten more brands to go. Once I'm done, I'd be happy to work on your back."

Tony paused. That one should have been an easy yes, but the thought of anyone looking at the mess of whip scars for any stretch of time, let alone laying hands on it, sent him mentally fleeing for the exits.

"No hurry," he said. "Finish what you're doing, maybe take a week or two off. You've earned it. I'll get back to you."

Attempting to misdirect an empath was an exercise in futility. Aaron gave him a sympathetic smile and said, "Of course it's your decision. No pressure."

Once outside, Tony caught sight of Rogers making his daily loop around the camp. Steve seemed to have turned a corner in his recovery in the week or so since the suspension bridge excursion. The shuffling walk had been steadily strengthening, and just recently had been upgraded to a light jog. Steve no longer looked like he was in the process of wasting away to his pre-serum size. Tony was, in a quiet and unexamined manner, pleased to see it.

But he still swung around the infirmary in the other direction, to ensure that their paths wouldn't cross.

It had been a draining day. In addition to the cosmetic work, there'd been a SHED talk that afternoon. While the net effects were proving generally salutary, the immediate aftermath always left him feeling like a raw nerve. Dinner would be ready shortly, but Tony wasn't quite up for crowds yet. He ducked into his dormitory — reliably empty at this time of day — and conjured Kel's voice in his mind. _Slow breaths_.

One thing he'd realized immediately was that the infirmary was not the right place for challenging conversations. After positing and discarding various options, the two of them had agreed to meet in the shed where pickaxes and other mining tools were stored. This, of course, made them SHED talks, because Tony had to amuse himself somehow.

When he allowed himself to think about it, he was more than a little alarmed at how quickly Kel had come to know more about him than any human on Earth. (Which, given that she wasn't human and they weren't on Earth, didn't count. But still.)

It wasn't that he didn't trust Pepper. He trusted Pepper unconditionally. But there were certain stories — e.g., the time in a cave in Afghanistan when the ether hadn't really worked and he'd been conscious for the installation of some of the hardware in his chest — that he'd never told her and never would. Pepper had her own set of nightmares now. (His fault. His failure.) She didn't deserve to carry his burdens, too.

But Kel knew. They'd gone on an arc reactor kick, and he'd spat the whole thing out. She'd absorbed it, just like she'd absorbed every other trauma he'd thrown her way. In fact, Tony was coming to suspect that Kel had also been through some messed-up stuff, over and above the loss of her hand. Nothing shocked her.

He'd tried to tease out some details once, but had been gently redirected.

"Outside," she'd said, "if you want to ask as a friend, it's fine. But in here, I'm not the interesting thing. Yes?"

He'd never taken her up on it. The system only worked if the shed was its own pocket universe, with no transfer of information in or out. (Well — notwithstanding silly little breathing exercises and so forth. Those also didn't count.)

The wobbly moment passed, and Tony judged himself fit for dinner. He joined his usual gang, and got the nod from Alisha that was his due as a freshly de-branded person. Out of courtesy to the still-branded people, no other acknowledgment was made.

The range of recreational options had expanded considerably over the past several weeks, thanks in part to raw materials that Kel had procured from the forest. The camp now had some approximations to soccer balls and baseballs, for instance. A few determined individuals were attempting to reinvent the guitar (Tony didn't want to know where the catgut had originated). Others had whittled chess sets and other board games, and some enterprising soul was manufacturing decks of cards.

On that particular evening, the Avengers added a new activity to the mix. Romanoff and Barton left their table after dinner and returned a few minutes later, each carrying armfuls of wooden staffs and batons. They headed for the opposite side of the town square, and Wilson, Rogers and Maximoff fell in behind them, wearing expressions of varying degrees of skepticism.

"Yeah, it's about time I give the new leg a test drive," Barton was saying loudly. "Make sure it still corners like the old one did. No big deal, nothing fancy. Friendly bit of exercise."

Tony noted the activity but didn't get terribly interested until Kel came out of the admin building a moment later, leading Jean.

"Well, well," he said. "Dinner and a floor show."

"No way," Alisha said firmly, and stood up from the table.

"You don't want to watch this?" Peter asked.

"I already know how it ends," she said. "I'll see you tomorrow."

Past history notwithstanding, if the hand-to-hand experts were going to give a demo, it would probably be a show worth watching. A few more people were already starting to drift in the Avengers' direction. Tony stood up, collected Peter with a jerk of his head, and headed over to find a good vantage point.

Jean and Barton had both picked up staffs, and were casually testing weight and balance while they just as casually circled each other. On some level, this felt inevitable, but Tony was a little surprised that Jean was willing to take the risk. A public trouncing could hurt her reputation.

"Remember," Barton said as he swung the staff into a guard position, "I'm barely off crutches. You'll go easy on me, right?"

"Of course," Jean replied, likewise readying herself.

 _Right_ , Tony thought, and then the match was on.

They weren't going easy, not by any reasonable definition of the word. The sharp clack of wood against wood rang out across the square. They circled each other, advancing and retreating by turns, weapons sweeping, thrusting, clashing—

Jean closed in and got enough leverage to throw Barton off balance, just for a second. He took a quick step back, too late. She broke his grip on his weapon, ducked low, and took his legs out from under him.

Barton landed on his back with a very amusing look of surprise on his face. "Seriously, Boss-Lady, who trained you?"

"Most recently?" Jean angled her head in Kel's direction. "Her."

She shifted her staff to one hand and used the other to haul Barton to his feet. He retrieved his own weapon and they both backed off to a respectful distance, circling slowly.

"Yeah? How about before that?"

He lunged forward swiftly. Jean blocked the thrust and countered, _clack-clack-clack_ until they broke apart again.

"Assorted youthful misadventures," she replied without missing a beat. "None worth recounting."

"Bullshit," Barton said.

He feinted high and swept low, but Jean wasn't fooled. She blocked and countered, setting off another eye-wateringly fast exchange of blows. _Clack-clack-clack_ and this time Barton broke through her guard and landed a sharp swat to her ribs. Jean grunted and took a step back.

"You've been doing this forever," Barton continued. "That part's obvious. The thing I don't get is why."

"My father grew up in China," she said. "As a child, I studied martial arts as a favor to him. He saw value in the tradition, and I found it agreeable, in a bland sort of way. Then came the first time I picked up a staff. Something about it made sense to my body. I've been a student of the art ever since."

"Uh-huh. Pretty sure there's still some missing pieces between then and now."

"There are," Jean agreed.

There came another sudden volley of blows. Barton was on the back foot almost immediately, yielding ground before her until she disarmed him again. This time she slung him over her shoulder to the ground and followed him down, ending with the base of her staff an inch from his throat.

Tony had made workouts with Jean and Kel into a regular thing, and as such, he'd known for some time that Jean's combat training exceeded his own. He'd wondered occasionally whether she could play in the big leagues. No longer.

"Hey, Nat," Barton said, and craned his neck to look at her upside down. "You remember the part where you step in and defend my honor, right?"

"I remember you talking about it," she said. "I don't remember agreeing." But she was standing right next to the weapons cache. It didn't take a genius.

Jean hauled Barton up off the ground again, and they nodded to each other. Measure taken and received.

She turned her attention to Natasha, and _this_ was going to be good.

But Natasha could never do things the simple way. "You know, I just had a much better idea," she said. "How do we think Kel would fare against Spider-Man?"

" _No_ ," Jean said sharply, echoing Tony's thoughts. "Out of the question. Under no circumstances do we run that experiment. Absolutely not. Banish the thought from your mind."

"So," Barton drawled, "what I'm hearing here is that you're on the fence?"

"Which one are you worried for?" Natasha inquired.

"Myself," Jean said promptly. "I am worried for myself. Neither of them has any sense of proportion whatsoever—"

"Hey!" said Peter.

"—and after the situation spirals out of control as it inevitably must, _I_ will be the one enduring all of the complaints. So, I say again, _no_."

"I've got proportion!" Peter protested. "What's that even supposed to mean?"

"You snuck through the portal with no plan, no idea what you would find here, minimal weaponry and, if memory serves, sandwiches," Jean told him. "That's what it means."

He couldn't refute her on any point. All he could do was cross his arms and scowl. "Yeah, well, it still wouldn't be much of a contest."

"This is true," Kel said, in exactly the wrong tone of voice. "It would not."

Oh brother.

"I know you can do all sorts of things with skin contact," Peter said, "but I could stop you without ever getting close, so."

"I think you would be very surprised at how badly this works for you."

"Yeah? Lemme get my webshooters and—"

"The answer is still no," Jean interjected, as perhaps the only person in this universe with a modicum of common sense. "Both of you, dial it down."

"I wouldn't damage him."

" _Kel_."

She took in Jean's expression, spoke a short sentence in her language, and touched her fingers to her forehead respectfully. That, apparently, was that.

Jean turned back to Natasha. "Enjoying yourself?"

"Yes, thank you," she replied, shameless. She'd picked up two of the batons.

"If you want to hit me with sticks, I'm already onboard," Jean said. She swung her staff back to a two-handed grip. "Additional provocation is not required."

"Maybe the provocation gives me an edge," Nat said.

Jean gave a little smile. "An interesting hypothesis."

And they were off.

It was a study in contrasts. Nat was lithe like a dancer, and she moved as though she'd found her own private loophole in the law of gravity. Jean was the taller and more physically imposing of the two, and whatever she lacked in speed and agility, she made up for with raw power.

As an intellectual exercise, it was intriguing. As a practical experiment occurring fifteen feet away from him, it was _intense_.

They struck and counter-struck, no holds barred, batons and staff flashing through the air faster than the eye could track. The six-foot staff should have been impossibly clumsy compared with the two batons, but somehow Jean turned it into something fluid, like an extension of herself. One second Jean was backing Nat along the grass, hammering at her guard with vicious blows. The next, Nat had twisted out of reach and seemed to be striking from every angle at once.

The fight should have been over in two seconds. It was _Romanoff_. Tony could see it on the Avengers' faces: they'd taken Jean for a dilettante, and they'd been wrong.

Nat did score the first touch. She finally found a hole in Jean's guard, dropped low, and cracked her hard across the calf. Jean barely flinched. She redoubled her attack, advancing as she struck, and a quick circle of her staff sent one of Nat's batons flying.

From the spectators — a unified intake of breath.

But it was barely an instant before the tide turned again. Nat ducked beneath a lateral cut, and from her crouch she launched herself with explosive power into the air. She kicked the staff aside and flew at Jean with a hard knee to the face.

Jean dropped the staff and rolled back with the impact, avoiding the brunt of the blow. The two women went over backwards. Jean tucked a leg and kicked, and Nat went back over her head, twisting midair to land on her feet. Jean rolled forward again and came up in a crouch. Her hand went behind her back and Nat's did the same, and both came back holding combat knives.

"Whoa, _whoa_!" Sam exclaimed, and stepped forward fast. "How about we _not_ take this to first blood, all right? You've both made your point."

There was a long, _long_ moment where the two of them stayed still as statues, each in a crouch, eyes locked on each other. Tony could feel the tension like electricity on his skin.

But then they made the return trip to reality. They slowly straightened up, backed off. The knives went back where they came from. The haze of combat dissipated.

"You're very good," Natasha said, sounding a little breathless.

"Five years of flinging myself against the brick wall that is Brenith enhanced reflexes," Jean replied, breathing heavily as well. "I've earned it."

They passed each other, returning to their respective sides. Jean came to rest next to Tony. Her forehead was beaded with sweat, and she was still catching her breath.

Peter leaned around Tony and informed her, "That was awesome."

"Thank you."

"And I've got _proportion_."

"I'll try to remember."

The evening's entertainment still wasn't over. Kel, now, equipped herself with a baton. "I hope it isn't only humans who can play," she said.

"You'll want all hands on deck for this," Jean added.

Nat looked around at her group. "Yeah, guys, I kind of feel like I'm carrying the team here."

Barton still had a staff. Wilson, looking more than a little dubious about the whole affair, armed himself likewise. Nat stayed on the field, and the three of them surrounded Kel.

What followed was an education in the difference between a highly trained human and a highly trained half-human Brenith. Tony understood it to a certain extent: thanks to her particular form of empathy, Kel essentially inhabited the bodies of her opponents as much as she did her own. She read every muscle twitch, and responded far faster than visual cues would have allowed. He'd tussled with her a couple of times during their morning workouts, and the experience had been a humbling one.

Watching her fight other people was less bruising, but no less impressive. She targeted Sam, disarmed him and dropped him almost before the other two could react. Barton and Romanoff, more at home with the weapons, managed to tie her up for almost thirty seconds. Then Nat lost a baton. Barton got smacked on the thigh and dropped to one knee. Nat tried to close on her, but Kel thrust her back with a hard kick to the stomach, and ducked a swing of the staff that she couldn't have seen coming. Another fierce clash, and Barton lost his weapon. Nat struck from behind and again it didn't matter — Kel sidestepped, swatted the baton from her hand, and pulled her counterstrike a hairsbreadth shy of clipping her across the head.

The whole thing was over in less than a minute. Kel lowered her weapon and stepped back, the very model of calm.

It mattered, too, that just moments ago, she had explicitly deferred to Jean's command. Kel was the physical powerhouse, but Jean was in charge. That was undoubtedly why, of the many startled looks being thrown about the space, Steve's was aimed squarely at Jean.

Natasha rearmed. "Five years?" she said to Jean.

"Well — four and a half."

"Do you ever win?"

"No. But I've found ways to lose instructively."

They tried it again. In the spirit of either fair play or truly driving home the point — it could go either way — Kel gave up her weapon and faced them empty-handed. This at least prolonged the match, although it didn't affect the outcome.

Not for the first time, Tony wondered just how much violence she'd seen in her life. Combat instincts as finely honed as hers generally didn't come without a cost.

He also had to admire what Jean had just done. It wasn't tough to guess that the leadership question was about to go critical. The stronger Rogers got, the more he would expect to take his old job back. This whole game had the air of an audition to it — asking Jean to prove that she had what it took to run in Avenger circles. Not only had she passed the test, she'd turned it around and asked them to prove that they could run in hers.

And that would have been plenty for one evening, but no, Jean had to go and take it one step further. She ducked out of the circle, giving Tony's arm a quick squeeze as she passed, and headed in the direction of her office. When she returned, she was carrying her spear and Kel's sword.

She paused next to the stash of batons and waited politely for Kel to finish mopping the floor with her opponents for a third time.

"May I cut in?" Jean asked. "You're welcome to continue working the problem afterward."

The three Avengers eyeballed the weapons she was holding and swiftly yielded the floor.

The mood began to shift. There was a frisson of danger in the air now. Jean and Kel armed themselves and faced each other, sword and spear at the ready, and Tony could feel the pent-up energy building between them like the stillness before a lightning strike.

No armor and no quarter. Steel struck steel, bright and deadly. Tony knew, rationally, that there had to be rules. Prearranged safeguards of some kind. It only _looked_ like they were trying to kill each other.

He also knew just how inhumanly skilled Kel was. The fact that Jean could stand up to her for even this long—

As if his thought had been a jinx, Kel ducked, lunged, and suddenly Jean's arm was bleeding, vivid red against the drab beige of her clothing. Kel retreated beneath an onslaught from the spear, dodged to the outside and slashed again, and a second line of blood welled up across Jean's ribs.

(Murmurs from the onlookers, unsettled. It wasn't as entertaining when the danger was so explicit.)

"Um, shouldn't they have gear or something?" Peter said.

"Probably."

Jean was unfazed by her injuries. The battle seemed to be evenly matched — an unstable equilibrium that was broken when Jean caught the sword on her spearpoint, forced it down, then swung her staff and cracked Kel full force across the face.

The sound drove straight into memories already unsettled, and Tony's head jerked in sympathetic reaction. Kel dropped like a rock, the sword falling from her hand.

Jean reversed the spear and stabbed, but Kel rolled out of the way and kept rolling, somehow finding her feet just in time to dodge another thrust. Her hand clamped down on the staff just behind the point.

One-armed, Jean hauled back on the spear with all her strength and Kel came bodily off the ground. A knife appeared in her other hand, and as Kel flew at her, Jean stabbed at her throat.

But Kel got her arm up to block. The knife gouged into her forearm and glanced off the bone, and an instant later she slammed elbow-first into Jean's face.

At close quarters, Jean was stronger but Kel was faster. Jean tried to get distance, but Kel stayed in tight, blocking every knee and elbow and firing punishing shots into her body. Jean retreated faster and somehow found a split-second to draw a second knife. But Kel blocked the slash, trapped the hand, circled to the outside, and Jean _screamed_ as Kel's weight landed on her elbow and broke it.

Tony lurched forward on pure instinct, the move mirrored by almost everyone watching—

" _Don't interfere_ ," Natasha snapped.

"Are you _kidding_?" Sam demanded.

"She won't thank you for it. _Watch_."

So they watched — they were just _watching_ this — as Jean was borne to the ground under pressure applied to an elbow now bending backward.

But she wasn't the only one working with a major injury. She threw her other elbow back and just barely clipped Kel across the jaw. Kel grunted and jerked away. Jean struck again, managed to get enough leverage back to roll partway over, and threw a wild, hooking kick that just managed to tag Kel's face.

Kel let go of Jean's arm and rolled backward. Just as swiftly, Jean regained her feet. They both came up with knives in their hands.

There was a moment's pause. The lower half of Kel's face (Tony could barely look at it) was visibly askew. Jean's right arm hung at her side, the elbow slightly bent — he couldn't stress this part enough — in the wrong direction. They were breathing heavily, _bleeding_ heavily, and not done yet.

Knife fights never lasted long. They clashed, and blood spurted as Kel laid open Jean's face to the bone. Jean reeled back, regrouped and drove forward again. The blades struck, deflected, and this time Jean caught the opening and buried her knife to the hilt in Kel's side.

It made no difference. Kel broke open Jean's guard, hooked her leg, and took them both to the ground with the edge of her blade pressed to Jean's throat.

Jean's hand tapped the grass beside her. Kel let her go instantly.

Everyone started to breathe again.

Wide-eyed, Peter whispered to Tony, "Mr. Stark, do you really work out with them?"

"Yeah, but it's fine," he said, numbly. "There are rules."

Kel took her jaw in her hand and wrenched it sideways, then reached around and yanked the knife out from between her ribs. Jean, meanwhile, had managed to climb to her knees. With something rather below her normal standard of care, Tony noted in the small corner of his mind that wasn't gibbering, Kel grabbed Jean's arm, braced a foot against her ribs for leverage, and pulled hard. Jean screamed again as the elbow popped back into place.

Her breath came in shuddering gasps that slowly leveled out. Then she struggled to her feet, planted all her weight behind her working arm, and threw a punch that… well, every person watching groaned and crossed their legs.

Kel staggered back a few steps. "It's fair," she wheezed.

Tony hadn't realized that Aaron had been among the spectators until he stepped into the arena, wearing an expression of resignation that suggested he'd seen this nonsense before and had long since given up on trying to stop it. He thrust a sheet of seaweed in Jean's direction, and she pressed it to the gash on her face. Then he turned his attention — rather more delicately than Kel had — to her arm.

"One day," he told her, "it will be something I can't fix."

"That's very possible," she replied.

Kel was fully recovered already. She was gathering up the various bloody weapons that had been scattered about the space, and her path carried her in front of Peter, where she paused.

"You asked me once what a battlefield is like," she told him. "This still isn't it."

"Do you feel pain?" Natasha asked her.

"Yes," Kel said. She set down the daggers next to the batons, and went back for her sword. "I don't have to. I can turn nerves off if I want. But we all learn this the hard way: never try to fix something if you can't feel what happens. Bones grow together wrong, have to be rebroken, sawed down sometimes — always much worse."

Meanwhile, Sam was fluttering over Jean, looking like he wanted to suture something. "You know, there's realism in training exercises, and then there's jettisoning all common sense. Usually we try to stick to the first one."

She shrugged with one shoulder, careful not to disturb Aaron's grasp on her other arm. "If an injury like this laid me up for six weeks, I'd set different limits."

"And you said _Kel's_ the one with no sense of proportion?"

"It wasn't intended as an exhaustive list." She turned toward Steve, and arched her eyebrows expectantly.

"All right," he conceded, clearly picking up on a conversation in progress. "I was wrong. You didn't need to go through all _that_ just to prove your point."

"If I had stopped with the staff," she replied, "you would have told me that the practice ring is a poor approximation to combat."

"You're both ridiculous," Kel announced, and Tony was inclined to agree with her even before he'd heard the specifics. "Steve needs to gain more stamina still. Then we all run a mission together. Several days. You want to see to the south, where the cliffs become flat, yes? We go there, learn the territory, come back. Everyone sees what everyone can do."

"A shakedown cruise," Natasha said. "It's not a bad idea."

"Can I come too?" Peter asked.

"No," said Tony.

"Yes," said Kel.

" _Hey_."

"We don't need to finalize the details now," Jean cut in. "I agree that a practical exercise is the next logical step. There's a supply shipment in eight days. We can make plans to leave shortly thereafter."

With that, the group began to break up. Kel and Jean, who didn't let broken bones or major stab wounds get in the way of friendship, did their back-of-wrist handshake before Jean let Aaron usher her in the direction of the infirmary. Romanoff and Barton cleared away their toys, leaving the edged weapons for Kel.

Tony needed to have words with Kel about her latest bit of nonsense, preferably without the kid in tow. Peter bid a hasty goodnight and scampered, and Tony let him go without an argument. He wasn't the culprit.

Kel stashed all the discarded knives about her person and picked up her sword. "Tony, can you bring the spear?" she asked.

Not quite what he'd had in mind, but it would do. He gingerly picked up the weapon and followed Kel back to the admin building.

There was a small room next to Jean's office that served as storage space for office supplies and weapons. Boxes of pencils and reams of paper shared shelf space with whetstones, oil and rags.

Kel sat down cross-legged with her sword in front of her, and started to scrub it clean of Jean's blood. "So," she said, "you disagree about Peter."

Tony propped the spear up in a corner and double-checked that it wasn't going to overbalance and slice someone's nose off. Then, lacking better options, he scrunched himself down into what little floor space remained. This was starting to feel like another SHED talk, even though it was the wrong shed.

 _Slow breaths_. Tony waded through the anxiety that was rising like a tide, and assembled a coherent thought. "The kid is my responsibility," he said. "You've got no business putting him in danger."

"Not my choice. His."

"He's got no business putting _himself_ in danger," Tony retorted.

"He's not helpless, Tony." She looked up at him. "You worry that this will be like the mission to rescue Steve, I think?"

"One item on a lengthy list."

"I don't think this is the right comparison," she said. "More people make it safer. We won't have to split up, or get close to a kethysh, or sneak into an enemy camp, or carry an unconscious person with us. There is still some risk to the humans, but Peter is stronger and faster than almost everything we might find. I think there is very little danger to him. And remember, you let me take him outside the barrier before."

" _Barely_."

In a flagrant violation of the pocket universe protocol, she said, "I know. I understand. There were things that you learned the hardest way possible, and you want it to be easier for him. But sometimes it goes too far the other way. He won't learn to be careful if he never sees consequences."

Tony pressed his lips together and focused on her fingers as they worked the rag slowly down the length of the sword. It was a primitive weapon — laughable, really, by modern Earth standards — but in this place, it was the state of the art. Kel was an expert in her field, and he respected her craftsmanship.

Most of the time, he respected her judgment as well. Yes, that one overnight trip had gone off without a hitch. If she… if she _promised_ (god, he was pathetic) that this longer excursion would be more of the same…

Tony tried on the thought of waiting in camp for a week or more while the rest of them went traipsing off into that deathtrap forest together, and — nope, not happening. He'd fret himself right into the grave. Which left only one way this plan of hers could work.

"All right," he said slowly. "If I'm even _remotely_ going to consider this, then I'm coming, too."

Kel frowned, and Tony braced himself for a fight.

"Of course you come," she said. "Probably Vision has to stay in camp for emergencies, but except for him, the whole team needs to go together. This is what I meant from the start."

Oh.

"I know it's still difficult between you and Steve," Kel went on. "Normally I would say, if trust is broken this badly, move on. But there's no one else here. If you can't work with him, at least you have to work near him."

Tony rubbed his eyes. It was so incredibly irritating when she had a point. "I need to think it over," he said.

"Yes."

"I reserve the right to veto the idea if, at any point in the next eight days, I happen to come to my senses."

"All right."

"You are an exhausting person."

"All right."

Once the steel was clean and gleaming again, Kel sheathed the sword and set it aside. "If you aren't too exhausted," she said, "can I ask you something else?"

She stood and gave Tony a hand up, then opened the door to the head-high cabinet just behind her. Crammed inside were a startling number of familiar-looking broadswords.

"You know how to work with metal, I think?" she said to him. "These are the swords from the Mjentur guards. Good quality, but too long and heavy for most humans to use. Need to be cut down. Is it something you could do?"

Tony knew the principles. He'd never forged a sword before, but he'd shaped certain components of the Mark I with the same basic tools.

"I'll give it a try," he said. "Could be fun."

"Good."

Kel reached up and lightly ran her thumb along Tony's cheek where the brand had been. "I like this much better," she said. "Sometimes damage can be fixed."

Subtlety really wasn't her thing. "Yeah, it's great," Tony said. "Aaron could move his business to LA, make a fortune."

She didn't get the reference, of course, but smiled politely anyway. "You have time to think about the mission, like you said. Jean and I won't contradict your decision."

"I know. And you can stop mother-henning me. I'm fine."

Then he had to explain what "mother-henning" was, which involved explaining what a chicken was, and her distraction tactics were as transparent as her metaphors, but Tony went with it anyway. A week-long camping trip with his former teammates was going to suck, but at least he wasn't entirely bereft of allies.

 


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for discussion of alien customs that, by human standards, would constitute child abuse.
> 
> And gosh, I just crossed 200k words. My continued thanks to everyone who's sticking with me on this adventure!

Jean drew the bowstring back and sighted along the length of the arrow to the target that had been scratched into the trunk of the tree. Then she stepped to the side, swung her aim ninety degrees, and loosed the arrow at Kel's back.

In one smooth motion almost too quick for the eye to track, Kel spun and drew her sword and slashed. The arrow scattered harmlessly; the sword completed its arc and landed back in its sheath; and Kel returned to her conversation with Tony like nothing had happened.

Tony, not nearly so sanguine, snapped, "Would the two of you mind trying to kill each other on your own time?"

"Sorry," Jean said, with questionable sincerity.

"Pulled a little to the left, there," Clint said.

"Always did." She picked up a second sharpened stick from the collection at her feet. "Let's try that again."

So they were all managing to amuse themselves.

Natasha finished refilling her canteen from the reserves that Harold the Third Horse carried, and crossed to sit with Steve and Wanda. "We'll probably reach the river by the end of the afternoon," she said. "Have you sensed anything new?"

Wanda shook her head. "It's no closer and no further. There's something dangerous, somewhere ahead of us. That's all I know."

"Not to nitpick, but that's probably true in every direction."

Peripherally, Natasha noted the _thunk_ as Jean's second arrow hit the tree, albeit at the outer edge of the target. She nocked a third arrow, and Clint adjusted her grip.

Wanda sighed. "I know. But this is something… different. Not an animal. Something bigger. Or… I don't _know_."

"I guess we'll find out what it is when it tries to kill us," Natasha said. "Situation normal, then."

This, the third of Natasha's journeys into the Venen-ka wilderness, had been by far the most leisurely. They were a group of nine, which by necessity moved more slowly than previous teams had. Certain of their number — specifically, Tony, Peter and Wanda — had little to no experience with sustained marches of this sort. And, of course, while Steve had made great strides over the last two weeks, he was still in the process of rebuilding his stamina. They were making only about twelve mile per day, and Steve, though wild horses couldn't have dragged it out of him, was at the upper limits of his strength.

The group had taken the west road out of camp to the suspension bridge, then turned to follow the ravine south. Water wasn't an issue: Peter Spider-Manned his way down the cliff each morning to fill their reserves. The water filtered during the morning leg of the hike and was ready to drink by midday.

The leadership question also wasn't an issue, or at least the issue wasn't how to decide who was giving the orders. Before they'd left, Kel — who had a certain way of cutting to the heart of things — had announced, "Jean leads on the way out. Steve leads on the way back. Unless someone else also wants a turn?"

No new hats had been thrown into the ring. At first, Jean had handled the job the way someone who'd learned to drive on four-cylinder sedans might handle their first Corvette, but she was gaining confidence. Since they'd crossed the boundary, she'd had to manage sentries, overnight watch rotations, a couple of skirmishes, and one pitched battle the previous day at dusk. They were all still in one piece.

Steve and Wanda had started lunch, and Natasha followed suit. Not long after, the shooting lesson wrapped up and Jean and Clint joined them. Jean set down her bow — a Clint Barton original — beside her.

"Enjoying your new toy?" Natasha asked.

"When it comes to facing down a wild animal in full charge, I'd rather have my Remington," Jean said. "But needs must." She turned to Wanda. "Any change?"

Wanda shook her head. "I'm sorry. I know it doesn't help you."

Jean steepled her fingers. "I can't pretend to understand the kind of information you have access to," she said, "and I don't want to dismiss it out of hand. However, absent specifics, or a sense of imminence, my instinct right now is to press forward and see what we find. Do you disagree?"

"No, I don't think so," she said. "Whatever's ahead… I don't think it's that close yet."

"All right. If your perceptions change, please let me know."

A rustling in the foliage overhead presaged Spider-Man's sudden drop into their midst. "So, the huge furry spider crab guys?" he said. "They're regrouping."

"How many?" Jean asked.

"Lots. Like, _lots_. Thirty, maybe more."

"This is becoming tedious," she muttered. "How far behind us are they?"

"When I left, they'd caught up to where we stopped this morning," Peter said. "They weren't chasing, just… milling."

"Strategizing," Steve said.

Jean glanced his way. "Now there's an unpleasant thought."

"We fought 'em off once already," Clint said. "They know we bite back."

"Yes. Perhaps that will keep us safe for the moment." She turned back to Peter. "You'll stay with the group now until we cross the river. Good job — now take a break and get something to eat."

The boy basked in the praise and scampered over to join Tony.

"We're not moving on?" Steve asked.

Jean shook her head. "We can't defend ourselves effectively if we're fatigued. If they hit us here or on the move, it makes little difference: Kel will sense them in plenty of time. But if you're right and they have the capacity to plan, then my guess is they'll shadow us until the river forks, and attack when we're blocked in on two sides."

The spider crabs had started taking issue with the team's presence the day before. They had banded fur and a startling number of multi-jointed legs, and moved with all the grace of an eight-foot-tall tumbleweed. Their four forward legs ended in serrated pincers, while the rest of their extremities bore versatile, multi-pronged claws. The body at the center of all the legs had a mouth so gaping wide, Natasha wasn't sure how there was room left for a brain.

The team had killed a dozen of the things the night before. Apparently they'd missed a few.

The lunch break ended without incident, and they resumed their course south. Kel reported when the spider crabs appeared at the edge of her empathic range. They stayed that way all afternoon, keeping pace but not closing in.

The landscape had undergone a sharp downward drop, leaving the river only twenty feet below them instead of a hundred. The opposite side of the ravine had remained level, and the cliff face now loomed overhead. As they'd learned on the rescue mission, a branch of the river led east toward the Nyth outpost. They were expecting to reach the branching point soon.

As the afternoon waned, that expectation was finally borne out. Natasha began to hear rushing water from ahead of her as well as to the right. It didn't take too much longer for the ground to drop away before them.

"How are our friends doing?" Jean asked Kel.

"They surround us," she replied. "Still at the same distance."

The next problem was the crossing. This branch of the river was narrow only in comparison with the ravine. It was still a good forty feet to the opposite bank, across a twenty-foot drop to the water below. The rescue team had crossed the river the last time thanks to a fallen tree; a brief discussion turned up no better ideas. Jean sent them out along the edge of the drop-off to look for candidates, and Natasha soon found one that was practically ideal: a conifer, by Earth standards, with a tall, uniform trunk that rose at least sixty feet into the air before flaring out into a crown of branches.

They'd brought two axes. Jean unstrapped them from their spot on Harold's flank.

"Clint, Tony, if you'd oblige?"

(Interesting choices. Jean did nothing by accident.)

The two men bristled at each other like ill-tempered housecats. But after Jean pointedly cleared her throat, they settled themselves down and set up a chopping rhythm, one on either side of the trunk.

Natasha had had three days to assess the team dynamics, not that it had taken her nearly that long. Calling them a team was generous. On one side was Tony, out of his element and constantly on high alert. He relaxed a little around Jean and Kel, and he put up a decent cover in front of Peter, but the tension was always just beneath the surface. He walked like a man expecting a knife in the back at any moment. On the other side were Steve and his allies in the Leipzig battle: Sam, Clint and Wanda. Natasha knew, because Clint had come grousing to her about it afterward, that Jean had had words with all of them about not carrying past grudges into the field. While no fistfights had broken out, the two sides weren't working together so much as pointedly avoiding each other. The rest — Jean, Kel, Peter, and to a certain extent herself — could cross enemy lines.

In short, they were still a mess.

It was obvious why Kel had accorded Jean first crack at the leadership role. Steve wasn't thrilled about taking orders from her, but that was nothing compared with the powder keg that would be touched off the first time Tony had to take orders from Steve. Jean knew this, and was taking the only steps she could: namely, small ones.

Clint and Tony chopped. The rest of them stood guard in case the spider crabs tried to take advantage of the distraction. When the tree began to wobble, Jean signalled to Wanda. A few more axe blows and the trunk began to fall… and was slowed by a cushion of Wanda's magic. She guided it down and let it settle gently across the width of the river.

"Question," Clint said. "How are we going to explain this to Harold?"

Harold, waiting patiently behind them, hooked a rotten log with his front claws, split it open, and slurped up the grubs found within.

"With difficulty, I suspect," Jean said. "Kel, how does the other side look?"

Kel closed her eyes and concentrated for a moment. "Safe," she replied. "Nothing large in the area."

"And our friends?"

"Closer. They wait."

Steve said, "They're going to hit us as soon as we thin our numbers."

"I don't know," Jean said. "Maybe they're just here to escort us out of their territory." She caught his look and gave a slight, sardonic smile. "Then again, maybe not. We take all the gear across first," she announced. "One person crosses at a time and returns. Then we'll deal with the horse, and lastly ourselves."

Natasha, Clint, Sam and Spider-Man each took a couple of turns running Harold's luggage and the team's packs across the fallen log to the opposite bank. Sam, the last one to make the trip, stayed put on Jean's instructions.

Jean and Clint introduced Harold to the log. Harold made it clear, politely but firmly, that he was having none of this balancing business. So they moved on to plan B. Kel laid her hand on Harold's nose and sent him folding gently to the ground, asleep. Spider-Man dashed across the log and climbed the closest tree.

"I trust it's obvious that I do not want this animal dropped off a cliff or bashed into a tree," Jean said to Wanda. "Are you certain you can bring him down gently, even from this distance?"

"I think so," Wanda said. "Both of us together can definitely do it."

Red light flared, and up poor Harold went, his scales scattering the light like a kaleidoscope. When he was halfway across the river and starting his downward arc, Spider-Man shot out a line of webbing that latched onto his saddle. The tack would hardly support any weight, but the line served as guide and stabilizer as Harold settled to the ground.

"Nice job, everyone," Jean said. "Now it's our turn. We make our crossing as quickly as possible, and destroy the bridge behind us. Wanda, can you fracture the log, or push it off the cliff?"

"Yes," she said. "I'll go last and shield the—"

"Here they come!" Kel called, and drew her sword.

Jean brought her spearpoint up. "Clint, Tony, Steve — go!"

Natasha also drew her sword. Wanda's hands shimmered red with magic at the ready. They formed a semicircle, the four of them, around the base of the fallen tree. Jean didn't have to spell it out: they would hold the bridge from this side until the other three were safely across.

The staccato sounds of the crabs' legs approached from every direction. Clint was already halfway across the river; Tony, less sure-footed, had just stepped out over the cliff's edge. Steve was atop the log, miraculously following orders, and that was all the attention Natasha could spare before the crabs were on them.

Wanda threw up a shield and bounced the first wave back, then fired blast after blast of energy into the swarm. Each hit reduced a crab to charred fur and bits of leg. But there weren't enough hits. The crabs darted from tree to tree, climbing as freakishly fast as they ran. Too many angles, no clean shots.

Instinct sent Natasha dodging to the side, and a crab landed where she'd stood an instant earlier. She blocked a pincer, severed the leg, blocked again and dodged and thrust her sword upward through its mouth to the center of its body. She drew back the blade, now dark with the creature's dank-smelling blood, and the twitching mess tumbled off the cliff.

From high up a tree, a crab launched itself out into space, aiming for the bridge. Wanda spun round and blasted it out of the air, and in the next breath, Jean carved the front legs off the crab that had charged her unprotected back. Kel was already surrounded by severed legs and furry chunks of flesh.

Steve was a third of the way to safety.

Still they came. Natasha dodged a claw, blocked two more with her blade. The crab recoiled from her counter-slash, trying to draw her out of position, but she wasn't taking the bait. Wanda blasted another crab that tried to leap in from above, and this time Natasha covered her back.

The team held their ground. They were holding. And Steve was two thirds of the way.

The crabs seemed to realize that a change in strategy was called for. On either side of the bridge, a row of them formed up and tumbled over the edge of the cliff.

"They climb the side of the rock!" Kel called out.

With ten feet to go, Steve stopped and looked over his shoulder. His balance wobbled.

From the other side of the river, Clint's arrows picked off one crab, two, three as they skittered along the side of the cliff. But the fourth reached the underside of the log, where Clint had no shot. Upside-down, it accelerated toward Steve.

Natasha leapt up onto the log and broke into a sprint.

Steve backpedalled — the log was wide but the bark was uneven, and his ankle turned. With only human reflexes and human balance, he couldn't recover his center, and Natasha was only a second away but in that second she saw him start to fall, saw the crab reach up—

Webbing enveloped Steve's torso. Spider-Man, still in the tree, yanked back on the line and Steve flew upward, just ahead of the pincers that snapped shut on nothing.

Natasha reached the crab an instant later and chopped at every limb and claw in sight until she heard something hit the water below. Clint sniped two more crabs before they could pull the same trick.

Ahead of her, Sam and Tony scrambled to catch Steve as he came in for a hard landing. All three men went over in a tangle of limbs.

"Clear behind!" Kel called.

"Fall back!" Jean ordered, and took her own advice.

Natasha covered the remaining length of the bridge in a few quick strides. She hopped down and cleared the way, and Jean and Kel soon followed.

"Wanda, we're across!" Jean called.

Wanda threw out another translucent red shield, then dropped her hands to her sides and lifted herself into the air with her magic. She flew backward across the river.

Without her to block the way, the surviving crabs swarmed the bridge.

But Wanda was much faster. She landed lightly amidst the team, raised her hands beside her, and clapped them together like she was banging cymbals. The log flared red along its entire length and shattered.

Half a dozen crabs found themselves standing on nothing, and fell into the water below. A few more scuttled back and forth along the far bank, pincers clicking uselessly.

The team took a collective breath.

Tony and Sam had recovered from having a super-soldier tossed at them, but Steve was still on the ground. Kel crouched beside him, and held her hand out over his leg.

"Kel?" Jean said.

"None of the crabs made it across," she said. "They aren't good in the fast water. We're outside their territory now, I think. We should move away from the edge, but I don't think they'll follow."

"Understood. Steve, are you hurt?"

"No, it's fine," Steve said. "Just give me a second and—"

But whatever lie he'd been about to tell was interrupted when Wanda staggered to one side, and braced herself against a nearby tree.

Jean quickly joined her. "How are you doing?"

"It's like pushing through molasses," she said. She was wan, and shaky on her feet. "It's the same problem Vision has, I think. Everything is a little wrong here." She gave a faint smile. "If we could take a short break from the emergencies, that would be very nice."

"I'll make inquiries," Jean replied, and offered a supporting arm. "Let's get a bit of distance from the river. Then we'll settle in for the night."

Natasha joined Kel next to Steve, and Spider-Man dropped down to ground level a moment later.

"I'm really sorry, Captain," he said. "I totally screwed up the landing."

"Don't worry about it, kid," Steve said. Kel had a light grasp on his ankle now. "It beat the alternative."

"It's only a sprain," Kel said. "Almost repaired. It will be sore tonight, fine tomorrow."

"Everyone else?" Jean asked. "Any injuries?"

She got a round of negative responses.

"Good. Then let's get out of here. Wanda, Steve, you'll take the horse. Humor me," she added firmly when both of them began to protest.

Harold, who had slept through all the excitement, stretched out his wings and gave his head a shake. Clint took over from Jean, and got Wanda installed on Harold's back. Kel and Sam did the same with Steve.

"Peter?" Jean continued. "Nice catch."

"Thanks!"

"While the horse has passengers, you're our pack mule. Tony?"

"On it," Tony said, and started loading the boy down with saddle bags.

The rest of the team gathered up their gear, and soon the convoy headed out again.

Natasha fell in next to Jean. She was bearing up well under the strain, all things considered — but there _was_ a strain. No one-on-one training exercises, however intense, could duplicate the experience of an extended mission through enemy territory, let alone the added pressure of being the shot-caller. Jean wasn't doing anything so overt as allowing her hands or voice to shake. No, the signs were much subtler: a certain tension carried in the shoulders; the length of time it had taken her breathing to settle after the battle with the spider crabs. Kel had thrown her friend into the deep end to a degree that Natasha wasn't sure she fully appreciated.

"You're doing well," Natasha said quietly.

Jean paused a moment, as if waiting for the punch line. "We're progressing," she replied when one didn't arrive. "There've been no major injuries. Matters could certainly be worse."

A small reminder was irresistible. "Yes. If there'd been only two of you, for example."

Jean's scowl of annoyance was almost too brief to be observed. "There are pros and cons," she said evenly. "A small group is potential prey. It may or may not be worth the trouble. A large group is a territorial invasion that must be repelled."

"Perhaps. In any event, you're past the point where you need to worry about earning respect," Natasha said. "You know that, right? I'm not saying you're off probation, but you're doing the right things and the team knows it."

"I also haven't done anything controversial enough to elicit significant pushback," Jean said. "The test will begin once we no longer agree on what the right thing is." She paused again, and allowed herself a slight smile. "However, I do appreciate the support."

They continued together in silence, and a bit of Jean's stress began to ebb.

 

* * *

 

The daylight was just beginning to wane when they reached a modest clearing among the trees, and Jean called a halt. She sent Kel, Clint and Sam on a perimeter sweep, while the rest of them began setting up camp for the night. Natasha took over Steve- and Wanda-wrangling, and managed with only modest amounts of exasperation to convince them both to sit quietly and rest while she refilled their water sacks.

Once Kel was back from her patrol, she examined Steve's ankle again. They spoke briefly about pain levels and stiffness, both of which Steve denied having. Kel rolled her eyes at that, as well she might, and told him that the ankle would be back to normal by the next day.

Peter took his accustomed spot next to Tony, who took _his_ accustomed spot as far from Steve as he could get. This made Peter's obvious fascination with Kel and her activities more than a little awkward. When she was done with Steve, Kel shifted to sit next to Peter, perhaps so that he could stop craning his neck. Jean sat down on Tony's other side, and the rest of the group filled in the circle. Everyone except Kel began to prepare their dinner rations.

"So, like… you weren't born on Earth, right?" Peter said to her. "You're from a whole other planet?"

She smiled. "I think you're also from another planet than this one."

"Yeah, okay, but what I mean is, _you're_ not from the same planet that _we're_ all from. Right?"

"Yes, this is right."

He looked around at the other members of the circle, most of whom weren't paying much attention. "You guys! Am I seriously the only one who's not over this yet? She's _from another planet_!"

Natasha said, "Thor's from another planet."

Peter huffed in annoyance. "Well, I never got to meet Thor."

"Lucky for you," Clint said.

"Hey, he'd've been on our side!"

"Wanna bet?"

"Don't start," Jean said firmly.

"Anyway," Peter said, "since I never met Thor, this is my first alien." He turned back to Kel. "You're not from Earth, but I heard you're part human. Is that true?"

"I carry human blood, yes."

"How did that happen, exactly?"

More than one person cleared their throat.

"Oh!" he yelped. "No, I don't mean _exactly_ , exactly. I don't need to know—" he mashed his hands together "— _exactly_. But… okay, which one of your parents is the alien?"

Kel's head tilted slightly. "By 'alien', I think you mean 'not human', yes?"

"Well, yeah, that's… oh." Peter ducked his head sheepishly. "Sorry. Yeah. Which of your parents isn't human?"

Kel pursed her lips as she considered the question. "In human culture, if I understand," she said, "a child has two parents, and they are the two who come before the child in the bloodline. Is this right?"

"There are a variety of exceptions," Natasha said, "but that's a common model, yes."

Kel shook her head a little at humans and their baffling ways. "We do things differently," she said. "For us, a child has one parent, and her family line is determined by claim, not by blood. My full name is Kel verak Tor, shorath j'Brenithi — 'Kel, child of Tor', yes? Tor is my parent. I think you would call him my father. I am a Brenith because he is a Brenith and he claimed me to his line. It's true that I'm also of his bloodline, but…" She flicked her fingers dismissively.

"Fair enough," Tony said, "but biologically speaking, a human must have gotten involved at some point, right?"

"Not the way you think," Kel replied. "There are some places in the galaxy where… I always forget what you call it. The small pieces of…" Her finger traced a spiral in the air.

Jean supplied, "DNA."

"Yes, this. If you bring dee-en-ay from more than one species, the scientists find a way to combine them and grow the result, if it survives. I don't know where Tor got the human piece, but these things can be bought, or stolen." She gave an unconcerned sort of shrug. "I imagine I was very expensive."

She was the only one who found this piece of news unremarkable. Even Jean, who must have heard the story before, gave her head an incredulous shake.

"So you weren't… born," Tony said carefully.

"Anyone got a Scottish king needs slaying?" Clint asked. "Just curious."

That got a confused head-tilt, since apparently Kel's English education hadn't covered the classics.

"No, I wasn't born," she said to Tony. "I was made. But, like I said, the bloodline isn't very important to us. Tor claimed me to his line, and I carry his name. This is what matters."

"And the other part of your name?" Natasha asked. " _Shorath_? What does that signify?"

"My name is spoken."

"This is like your rules about when you refer to people by their names, right?" Clint said.

Kel hesitated, and gave her head a frustrated shake — not at the questions, but at the struggles of translation. "All the words in your language, and you have none of the right ones," she said. "Jean, I made this make sense to you once, didn't I?"

"After a fashion," Jean said. "As I understand it, j'Brenithi have a militaristic culture, but their military doesn't have ranks, as such. The chain of command is determined by a balance of seniority, experience and reputation. It is expected that leaders at various levels will tell each other of the accomplishments of their subordinates — literally speaking their names. The culture has a strong oral tradition: this is the most common way for news and history to be passed on. To become _shorath_ , as best I can tell, is somewhere between a promotion and a citation. It means that something Kel accomplished in the field was singled out as noteworthy by her superiors, and the story extended beyond her immediate chain of command."

"After I had a name, but before it was spoken, I was Kel verak Tor, eneth j'Brenithi," Kel said. " _Enethe_ are sent to war, where their lives are to be spent. To die _eneth_ is no shame to the line. To survive is the only way to become _shorath_."

"What does cause shame?" Natasha asked.

"To live, unspoken."

Idly, Natasha wondered how Kel's people viewed spies. (Any culture that regularly went to war with its neighbors had them.) What did it mean to change identities, when an identity was constructed not on paper or in a database, but by word-of-mouth reputation? For a system like that to work, there had to be powerful taboos against misrepresenting oneself or others. Infiltration became a rather different problem than it was on Earth.

On the other hand, anonymity was as simple as giving a name that no one knew. _I've never heard of you, therefore you're nobody._ It was quite the cultural blindspot.

Tony turned to Peter. "Any other intrusive questions you want to get off your chest?"

"Uh… maybe one?" Peter said.

Kel smiled. "It's fine. Jean tells me I asked many strange things when I first came to Earth."

Peter aimed big, innocent eyes at Tony, who waved one hand in a 'be it on your own head' sort of way.

"I know you heal fast," Peter said to Kel. "Faster than me, even. So… what's the deal with your face?"

Well. That was one way to do it.

Naturally, Natasha was curious. Kel's markings were deliberate rather than the result of an injury, which indicated some manner of cultural significance, but Natasha had no standards by which to gauge the level of significance. Body modification was common on Earth, in a variety of forms; facial scars were extreme by many terrestrial standards, but maybe they were as boring as a butterfly ankle tattoo where Kel came from.

"Ah. Yes." Kel touched her chin. "This is my name."

"Um. How?"

"For us — and again, I know the human custom is different — children have no names. Before the claim is made, it is the responsibility of all adults of the clan to watch for them and train them. As a child matures, her empathic powers appear. The adults teach her control, make sure the sense and the abilities develop correctly. When she is ready, the parent claims her to the family line. There is a ceremony, a demonstration of combat skills, and a sacrifice of something from childhood. Often a child's practice weapon, passed down to someone younger. But with my human blood, Tor thought that a stronger symbol was needed. So I took scars."

Natasha knew that a couple people in the audience were going to be hit hard by that, and Tony was one of them.

"You're telling us," he said tightly, "that your _father_ did that to you?"

"Yes," Kel said. "We take scars to mark important events. It's unusual to do it for the name, but more common among _enethe_ and _shoratha_. I have several others now."

"I already know I'm going to regret asking this, but how old were you when…" Tony gestured at his own face. "When all this happened?"

Kel's fingers twitched as she counted. "By human standards, twelve, I think? Maybe thirteen. Younger than Spider-Man, but not much." She looked around at her audience, most of whom were staring at her with some degree of horror. "I understand…" But she paused, and shook her head. "No, I don't. I know that many humans find this difficult, but I don't understand why."

Clint asked her, "You want the interspecies translation?"

"Yes."

"By modern-day Western Earth-based standards, your childhood was fucked up."

Kel blinked. "All right."

"Then again, a lot of us had childhoods that were fucked up. So welcome to the club."

She accorded this a moment of solemn consideration, then tapped her fingers to her forehead in acknowledgment.

Conversation, unsurprisingly, hit a lull. Peter in particular looked like he was contemplating never opening his mouth again (although Natasha guessed that it would last for ten minutes, tops).

Jean let them all eat dinner in silence for a time, then asked a mundane question about watch rotations. Natasha nodded when Clint caught her eye, and he volunteered them for the first shift. An equally mundane debate then picked up over whose turn it was to take the second shift. Little by little, the mood began to lighten.

There had been nothing in Kel's story that Natasha had found shocking. If anything, it had been confirmation of things that she'd long suspected; a subconscious sense of recognition now rendered explicit. Kel had never known a moment in her life when she wasn't being shaped into a weapon — and perhaps a status symbol as well, given her unusual origins. Her creator had left his marks on her skin. These were things Natasha could understand.

She also understood that a life of that sort didn't tend to engender compassion. Every time Kel exercised hers, she was fighting a lifetime of programming. It was a choice — the same one that Natasha knew intimately, and that Wanda was still learning — to take the thing they'd each been built to be, and learn to use it for something better. _Welcome to the club_.

 

* * *

 

"It's closer now," Wanda said. "The danger. Much closer than it was last night."

Jean paused her breakfast and regarded Wanda seriously. "Meaning that it's mobile?" she asked.

Wanda shrugged helplessly at the impossibility of turning her perceptions into words. "Or maybe I couldn't sense it clearly before. I'm not sure. But I know that if we go further in this direction, everyone will be in great danger."

Natasha watched carefully as Jean weighed the options.

"All right," Jean said after a moment. "We'll turn east, and try to go around. But it's difficult to circumnavigate something without knowing what it is. I'm inclined to take a small reconnaissance team a short distance forward. Would you be willing to come with us?"

Now it was Wanda's turn to consider. "Yes," she said, cautiously. "A short distance. But…"

"Don't worry," said Jean. "If you tell me to turn back, I'm not planning to argue."

"I'll come, too," Natasha said. "Whatever this danger is that Kel can't sense, it has to be worth a look."

Kel had built up a tolerance for the human custom of food consumption, but she still preferred to absent herself for at least one meal per day. She reappeared as breakfast wrapped up, and Jean gave her the update.

"Yes, I begin to understand," Kel said. "Ahead of us, there is nothing alive. No predators, no prey. Something destroyed or chased out every animal, as far as I can sense."

"Do you have any idea what could have done it?"

"No. I was never in this part of the forest before, and I never found anything similar in other places."

Tony had been passing behind them in time to catch Kel's remarks. He slammed to a halt and gripped Jean by the arm, pulling her partway around to face him.

"What are you talking about?" he demanded. "The danger? The thing up ahead of us — are you saying we reached it?"

Her eyes flicked down to his hand, then back. "Yes, Wanda believes so. We're going to—"

"Peter's already gone scouting ahead," Tony snapped. "Like you tell him to do every morning." He rounded on Kel. "Is he in the dead zone? Can you still pick him up?"

"Yes, I can sense him," Kel said. "In the trees. He's not damaged or afraid."

But her reassurances were hollow in the face of the dread rising in each of them. Tony was the first to break into a run. Jean paused just long enough to call out some hasty instructions to Steve to keep everyone else in place, and the rest were hard on her heels.

They plunged deeper into the forest. Tony bellowed for Peter, then Jean did, then Tony again—

"Holy crap, _what_?" Peter said when he dropped down from the canopy. "Did you really need to yell like that? I thought something was eating you!"

"Are you all right?" Tony demanded.

"Yeah, Mr. Stark, of course! I was just on my way to tell everyone that there's nothing out there at all. It's completely safe."

Tony sagged in relief, his hand over his heart. "Okay," he said. "Good. All right. From now on, just stay with—"

"What's on your back?" Natasha asked.

Peter was wearing the camouflage jacket that he'd brought from Earth, although he had on the labor camp uniform underneath and not the Spider-Man suit. On the back of the jacket was a hand-sized patch of dark green moss. At first glance, the species looked unremarkable. But a few seconds' observation revealed that the patch was visibly spreading.

Peter looked quickly over his shoulder. "What?"

" _Don't move_ ," Kel snapped, and the boy froze in place.

Tony looked like he'd aged ten years in a heartbeat. "What is it?"

"I don't know yet," Kel said, leaning in very carefully for a closer look. "Spider-Man, look straight ahead, and be very still. Natasha, hold the lower edge of the jacket straight out. If the patch moves toward you, let go."

"What is it?" Peter echoed, sounding very young and scared.

"It looks like moss," Natasha told him. "You probably brushed against a tree and picked it up without noticing. But it's growing a lot faster than it should, and I don't think we want to find out the hard way what it lives on."

"Yes, a plant," Kel said. "It has no sensation that I can read. This is why I couldn't see it."

Kel took Peter's jacket by the back of the collar, and Natasha stretched out the bottom hem. The moss did not accelerate her way, but it did continue to spread.

"Tony," Kel continued, "open the front of the jacket. Peter, after he does this, slowly step forward out of it, then stop."

Tony worked the zipper. Peter walked forward. The sleeves bunched up around his wrists, then let go, leaving the jacket in Kel and Natasha's hands. They lowered it to the ground.

"May I take it we've found our culprit?" Jean asked.

"Yes," Wanda replied. Her voice was tight with disgust. "And there's a lot more moss on these trees than when we got here."

Natasha looked up quickly. She was right.

"We need to run."

"Yes," said Kel. "Back the way we came. Don't touch the trees, and be careful where—"

" _Ouch_!" Peter cried. He curled forward and reached back over his shoulder. "Something bit me! What the—"

"Don't touch it!" Kel ordered as she rushed to his side. "Stand up straight, and be still." She looked up at the rest of them. "I need Tony and two more."

"Wanda, head back to the group," Jean said. "Tell them what the problem is, check the immediate area, and if it's infested, get them out of there."

"Right." She turned and ran.

Kel pulled a knife, and Natasha helped her slice a narrow strip out of Peter's shirt from hem to collar. In the center of it, no larger than a thumbnail, was a fragment of the moss. It had dug through the fabric and burrowed into the boy's back.

"Natasha, take the ends of the cloth," Kel said. "Tony, your hands on Spider-Man's shoulders, and hold this." She lifted up the rest of Peter's shirt. Tony stepped in close, enclosing Peter in his arms, and took it from her. "Jean, my left pocket, bandages."

Peter's breath came in sharp, panicked gasps. "It _hurts_ ," he whispered.

"I know," Kel said. "The plant grows into your skin. I need to see where the pain is, to know that I got it all out." Once Jean had emptied her pocket, Kel stepped around to the side, into Peter's line of sight, and sheathed her knife in order to clasp his hand. "We aren't strong enough to hold you still," she said quietly. "You have to do it yourself. This will hurt very badly, and you _must_ be still. I'll make it stop as soon as I can, I promise."

Peter squeezed his eyes shut. Tony's knuckles were white around the fabric of the shirt.

Kel drew the knife again. She set the edge to Peter's skin, just behind the strip of cloth that was pinned there, and gouged.

The boy gave a yell and jerked away—

" _Be still_!"

He caught himself. His jaw clamped shut, and the cry of pain became a keening in the back of his throat. His face was buried in Tony's shoulder and his every muscle was rigid, and he endured it until a chunk of skin and muscle fell away.

The fabric came loose in Natasha's hand, and she flung it and the excised tissue out into the forest.

Blood flowed freely from the wound, but Kel made no move to stem it. Jean held the bandages to Peter's lower back, catching the blood before it could drip onto his trousers, while Kel rested her fingertips just above the cut she'd made. Her eyes closed in concentration; Natasha could sense the effort as she searched for any last traces of the invading organism.

Peter suddenly sagged in relief. Kel must have blocked the pain.

"It's gone," she said. "Bandage quickly, then we go."

Jean covered the wound with fresh gauze and taped down a field dressing.

"Good job, buddy," Tony murmured. "It's all over. You did great."

From within the depths of Tony's arms, Peter's muffled voice declared, fervently, "That _sucked_."

"I know it did, kiddo. But now we're getting out of here."

The moss was on the trees in every direction now, visibly spreading upward and outward. Peter's jacket had been completely enveloped, and the patch was creeping out along the ground toward them. Braced for the sting of an attack, eyes fixed on the ground because a fall would be fatal, they ran.

No one fell. They ran back to the campsite, where they found worried teammates and relative safety.

"Wanda?" Jean asked.

She shook her head. "It's not here yet. Everyone's okay."

"What the fuck is going on out there?" Clint asked.

"Mobile, carnivorous moss," Natasha said. "If you get some on your skin, you won't like how to get it off again."

"Everyone who was out there — Wanda, you too — partner off and check all exposed surfaces, including the soles of your shoes," Jean said. "If we picked up any more of the stuff, let's deal with it now. Everyone else, strike camp and get ready to move out. We're giving this place a wide berth."

Kel took Peter aside (in a world of awkward options for him, that was perhaps the least awkward), and Jean took Tony. Natasha carefully checked through Wanda's hair and clothing for dark patches, then held still and allowed her to perform the same process. They all came up clean.

While everyone else packed, Peter changed shirts, after which Kel led him to the medical supplies and had him sit with his knees pulled up to his chest while she cleaned and healed the cut on his back. He endured this patiently enough, all things considered. The fright was already wearing off.

Tony, on the other hand, was just starting to spool up. That had been a _very_ close call. If the moss had dug into Peter's spine instead of simply a muscle, there might have been nothing they could do.

It had also been proof positive that, in spite of Kel's extensive knowledge of the environment, there were organisms she wasn't familiar with, and threats she couldn't perceive. Jean treated her like a safety net — they all did, really — and now, all of a sudden, she'd developed a few holes.

The convoy headed east. Natasha joined up with Clint, and allowed him to scrutinize her until he was convinced that she wasn't injured. Jean was at the head of the line, spear in hand and bow over her shoulder, far enough away to be out of earshot.

"So the kid got hurt, huh?" Clint murmured. "Stark's gonna shit a brick, if he hasn't already."

Natasha didn't dignify that with a response.

"How'd Boss-Lady do?"

"She didn't freeze," Natasha said. "She adapts. She takes advice, and doesn't fake expertise she doesn't have. As first-time field agents go? Above average."

Clint grunted in acknowledgment.

What Natasha had said the previous day still held true: Jean had earned respect, but she wasn't off probation yet. Most of the threats they'd seen so far had been known commodities. That moss had been their first brush with something unknown. There was aftermath still to be dealt with — Natasha hoped that Jean knew enough to keep a close eye on Peter and especially Tony — and then there would be the next crisis, and the next. It remained to be seen whether she could handle the pressure while holding their shaky alliance together. These first few days had been a warm-up; the test was just beginning.

 


	30. Chapter 30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for animal death.

The morning walk gave Tony three miles in which to fume. What had he been thinking? What _had_ he been thinking? How many horror stories about this fucking forest did he have to hear before he got the idea _not to send the kid out into it_? There were a hundred different ways that the incident that morning could have ended in catastrophe. By the time the mid-morning break rolled around, he'd envisioned every last one.

Jean came to a spot she liked the look of, ordered the usual perimeter checks, and granted official permission to sit. Once everyone else was occupied with their own affairs (and Peter was safely ensconced in the midst of the group and absolutely not running off and getting himself eaten), she stopped alongside Tony.

"Can I borrow you for a few minutes?" she asked.

They hiked a short ways off. Jean had set down her bow with the rest of her gear, but she still had the spear in her hand — for security, of course, but Tony couldn't help but read it as hostile.

He was in no mood to do anything the easy way. Once they stopped, he crossed his arms and asked, "What?"

Unflappable as ever, she said, "I assumed — perhaps uncharitably — that you might have some grievances. Is there anything you want to discuss?"

"Who, me?" Tony asked. "Why? Off the top of my head, I can't think of a single thing that— oh, unless of course you thought I might take issue with the way the kid _nearly died this morning_!"

Still unflapped — god, he hated that about her sometimes — she said, "We got to him in plenty of time. Kel handled the problem with minimal damage."

"No, this is not the part where you congratulate yourself on your organizational skills," Tony retorted. "We got _lucky_. What if that shit had gotten into his brain? What if it'd been airborne and he'd inhaled it? What if…"

_What if I'd had to watch him die? How many more can I—_

"You're right," Jean said quietly. "The lapse was mine. I had no idea an organism like that existed. Kel had never encountered it before. It's tautological, I suppose: she doesn't know what she doesn't know. I should have been more cautious around the possibility of unforeseen threats."

There was far less emotional satisfaction to be had from berating someone who agreed that they were in the wrong, but Tony gave it a try anyway. "You're goddamned right, you should have."

"He won't do any more solo or long-distance scouting," she said. "No one will. From now on, the group stays together."

"Great," Tony said. "We all stay together, out here in this hostile alien wilderness, until the next thing comes along to wipe us out. I'm so glad we had this little chat."

"Yes, the environment is dangerous," she said. "Peter is at risk. Simply by being on this planet, he is at risk. We all are. I cannot generate an exemption through sheer force of will, however much I might want to. There was a problem. The team was there. We handled it. That's the only offer that any of us get."

Right — the team. Because that concept always worked out _great_. "Do you understand that anything that happens to him is my responsibility?" he asked, hating how shredded his voice had become. "If he dies here, I killed him."

"If anyone dies here," Jean replied somberly, "I killed them."

The weight of accumulated guilt ground the conversation to a halt.

Kel's story from the night before had lodged in Tony's head like a splinter. _Give your child a name, then send them off to be_ spent. _Top-notch parenting, there._ He'd been appalled by it, disgusted… but then, who the hell was he to claim moral superiority? _Hey, kid, want your shot at the big leagues? Here, have a suit!_ Jean had had only a minor impact on a chain of events for which, ultimately, Tony was to blame.

Jean leaned her spear against a tree, and took a few steps toward him. "I didn't send Peter out there this morning," she said. "And I wouldn't have done so once I'd heard Wanda's report."

"So now you're blaming—"

"No one but myself," she said. "Breakdowns in communication still track back to me. I just hope you believe that I would never use him cavalierly. If I'd had any idea—"

"You didn't," Tony said. "None of us did." He took a breath. "I could have shut down the scouting runs in the first place, but I didn't. There was more than enough overconfidence to go around. And you can't know everything about the planet — it's not like you designed the damned thing." He paused, and looked up. "Did you?"

She gave a quiet chuckle. "No. Shockingly, I wasn't even consulted."

"Well, there you have it."

It still felt like there was a fist clenched around his heart, but maybe it was just an ordinary human fist and no longer, like, the Hulk's fist. Jean, at least, had his back. She took the matter seriously and would be implementing more safeguards. That was… well, it was about as impactful as a pebble hitting the ocean, but it wasn't nothing.

"That moss worries me," Jean said. "The camp barrier wouldn't stop it. I could use someone who can talk science to me about how it could be blocked or contained. I could use a weapon against the jellyfish that doesn't involve Wanda flash-frying them. I could use you here, Tony. But if this isn't what you signed up for, then I'll have Kel escort you and Peter back to camp."

Tony did a double-take. "What? You can't lose her for that long. She's critical to your defense."

"I'm painfully aware. But my options are limited."

And she would do it, too. She would dispatch Kel to babysit them, leaving the rest of the group without an early warning system or a medic for however many days Kel took to make the round trip. And the worst part of it was, she wouldn't say one word about what a selfish jackass Tony was to make the request, and she would shut down anyone else who tried to give him shit about it, either.

He'd already run this math. Had done it the instant it had been clear that Peter wasn't going to die. The two of them couldn't make it back on their own, Jean wasn't going to cut the mission short, and he had no right to put the rest of the group at risk by fragmenting their defenses.

He was stuck. They all were.

"This _isn't_ what I signed up for, since you ask," Tony said. "But dividing one vulnerable group into two smaller, even more vulnerable groups is no solution. We're here. Let's just get this thing over with."

Jean nodded. "I'll have to speak to Peter about not leaving the group without authorization," she said.

"No, let me do it," Tony replied. "Not in a fly-off-the-handle way, just… it's my job."

"All right. Is there anything else I can do?"

"No, I think today's edition of 'Private Conversations Beneath the Trees' has run its course."

"Actually," Jean said, "we're not done. Now it's my turn."

Once again, he found himself asking, "What?"

"If you ever lay hands on me like that again, I had better be about to fall off a cliff."

What was she even… What _hands_? He didn't remember… He'd heard Kel say something about everything up ahead of them being dead, and the panic had slammed into him like a freight train. So he'd… he'd taken Jean by the arm and—

"You're making an issue out of _that_ , are you kidding me?"

"You left _bruises_ , Tony," she retorted. "It was the same thing you nearly laid out Rogers for doing to you, or have you forgotten?"

Why the hell that incident wouldn't goddamned die already… Tony groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Well gosh, if in my moment of blinding panic I attracted your attention a little too vigorously—"

"No. Try again."

And he _very_ nearly snapped something back that would have led to an even bigger mess, but at the last second he shut his mouth. The flare of defensiveness burned itself out, and some facts presented themselves, none of them in his favor. If he'd actually left marks…

Tony felt his guts twist in embarrassment. He hadn't meant to… _obviously_ he hadn't meant to manhandle her. He summoned some of those calming exercises that Kel was always going on about, and tried again. "You're right. I'm sorry. It won't happen again."

"Thank you," she said. It didn't sound sarcastic, not that Tony trusted his gauge. "Now we can head back."

Feeling like a sulky five-year-old, he crossed his arms, glowered at the forest floor, and muttered, "I fletched your arrows."

She turned. "I beg your pardon?"

"The pointy sticks that we're generously calling arrows. I fletched them. Last night, when I somehow got stuck with the midnight shift even though it _clearly_ wasn't my turn."

"What did you use?"

"Not sure, actually," Tony said. "Kel vanished into the night, as she does, and came back with… they might technically be scales, but the shape and weight were a workable approximation to feathers. You'll have to ask her what critter is doing a half-naked walk of shame this morning."

"Well, thank you. I'll give them a try." Her mouth twisted like she was trying not to smile. "I can be displeased with something you did without issuing a blanket condemnation of you as a person. You know that, right? You don't need to engineer your way back into my good graces."

He rolled his eyes vigorously, which was the only possible response to emotional touchy-feely crap like that, while at the same time scratching the back of his head in what he hoped was an apologetic manner. It was a complicated set of signals to coordinate.

"Yeah, obviously," he said. "Whatever. It's done with. We're fine." He looked up. "Right?"

Jean picked up her spear again, then wandered her way back to him and extended her free arm, which he allowed to settle around his shoulders. "Let's go."

They walked back to the group and went their separate ways. Tony returned to the out-of-the-way tree hollow where he'd stashed his backpack, and sank to the ground with a groan.

It was just walking. They weren't even walking that far each day. But it was _exhausting_. Kel had some kind of balm for sore muscles, and another for aching feet, and Tony was pretty much bathing in the stuff. (Which was just as well, since there was nothing else to bathe in.) He'd thought he was in good shape, but a Roman legionary he apparently was not.

Under a different set of trees, the five Avengers were clustered together, variously chatting, drinking water, and stretching muscles. There had been relatively little friction between the two factions, largely because they hardly ever interacted. Jean occasionally crossed the streams when she handed out small assignments like chopping down that tree the other day, but when it came to overnight watches, she only paired Tony with Kel or herself. During downtime like this, Tony kept his distance, and no one from the other side tried to push it. Steve was leaving him alone, like Tony had asked. Which was fine.

Harold the horse was tethered to yet another tree — there wasn't a hell of a lot of variety in the local flora — and Peter was sitting next to him, holding out a small branch so that Harold could strip the leaves with his teeth. The saddlebags were on the ground nearby. Loading and unloading the horse had become one of the kid's jobs; since it involved almost zero risk of being eaten, Tony approved.

Peter noticed that he was under observation. He set the branch down, sidled over, and dropped to the ground beside Tony. (Harold, unperturbed, pinned the branch with his foreclaws and continued his snack.)

"Am I in trouble?" Peter asked, sounding resigned.

Yelling at people, no matter how reasonable it appeared at the time, never seemed to work out for him. Tony decided to try a different approach. He clapped the kid on the shoulder and said, "Don't touch any more killer moss."

"No, I _definitely_ won't be doing that again."

"When you left this morning, did you have the go-ahead from Jean?"

"No, but I just figured she hadn't gotten around to it yet, so—"

"She hadn't gotten around to it yet because she was busy gathering critical information," Tony said. "No more unilateral moves like that. Got it? We're supposed to be working together." (Not that he'd been a fantastic role model in that regard.)

Peter nodded rapidly. "Yeah, I got it."

"Good." Tony leaned back against the tree and stretched out his legs. "Then you're not in trouble. I think the point was adequately made when you were nearly eaten by killer moss. How're you doing with that, by the way?"

He shrugged. "It's no big deal. Kel fixed it."

Kel, in her enigmatic way, chose that moment to pop up out of nowhere. "Hi, Spider-Man," she said. "Can I check on your back quickly?"

He nodded, and leaned forward over his knees while pulling the back of his shirt up to his shoulders.

There was a scar, of course. Kel's work never healed flawlessly. She'd dug a chunk out of Peter's left trapezius, beside the shoulder blade, and now there was a thumb-sized patch of thickened skin. (Fist still clenched around heart.)

"Any pain or tightness?" she asked him.

The kid shook his head. "Nope, it's fine now."

She set her fingertips delicately on his skin just above the incision point, and concentrated a moment. "No tissue damage, no debris. Healed cleanly. I agree — it's fine now."

Peter settled his shirt back down again, and Kel shifted to sit in front of him.

"I know I contradict myself to come over here and then say this," she told him, "but if you need some space from me, it's normal. It doesn't offend."

"No!" he said quickly. "I mean, yeah, that _really_ hurt and I don't ever want to do it again, but… I think you kind of saved my life back there. And getting injured sometimes is part of being an Av—" He broke off with a guilty look in Tony's direction. "Um. A superhero, or whatever. So… we're cool. Thanks."

"All right." Her head tilted a little. "This is 'cool', the positive modifier, not the temperature, yes?"

The kid just barely choked back a laugh. "Yeah, the positive modifier You got it."

"Good." She made as if to stand, but only made it a few inches off the ground before dropping back down again. "No, I forgot the other thing. We'll walk today, try to get a safe distance from the moss, then take tomorrow to rest. Many people could use it."

Under other circumstances, Tony might have assumed that _many people_ was a euphemism for him, except in this case it was clearly a euphemism for Steve. Not that he was complaining.

"Tony," Kel continued, "maybe you and I will find some time tomorrow to go for a walk."

SHED talks were scheduled weekly, and by Kel's standards, a week was five days long. They were on track, then. (And maybe it wasn't the worst idea ever.)

"Sure, sounds swell," he said. "The moderately sarcastic positive modifier, not the medical symptom."

She sighed. "Your language is terrible."

"Yeah, we know."

Once she was gone, Peter settled back against the tree beside Tony. His homemade mask left enough of his face uncovered for Tony to see the smirk.

Tony leveled an eyebrow at him. "Something on your mind?"

"Do, ah… you and Kel go for walks together a lot?" the kid asked.

"Tell me more about the many hazards of being… what did you say you were? An Avril Lavigne fan, was it?"

"Yeah, okay." Peter paused. "I really am all right, you know," he said, as his face turned away shyly. "It was scary, this morning, but… you were there, and Jean and Kel and everyone. That's the whole idea of the team, right? We protect each other?"

For some reason, Tony found himself looking at Steve and his entourage again. Maybe wondering a little about the sorts of damage that could be fixed. "Yeah," he said. "That's the idea."

 

* * *

 

Following the rest day — which Steve knew had been largely on his account, no matter how much Jean tried to play it off as something they all needed — it took them another two full days of walking to reach the end of the ravine. The terrain had sloped steadily downhill since the river crossing. On the afternoon of the second day, they hit a sudden ledge and took their time picking their way down the rocks. At the bottom, the trees underwent a startling growth spurt and the ground finally flattened out. The river that had carved out the ravine now churned along beside them instead of below them.

As the sun began to set, they made camp for the night, and Steve sank his way slowly and painfully to the ground. Their pace was incredibly mild — no more than six hours of walking each day — and he was just barely keeping up. He carried no pack. He stood no watches. He did none of the fighting when predators attacked. He was being carried, and he resented the everloving hell out of it, and there was nothing he could do.

Sam, who actually had responsibilities, concluded his perimeter check and reported to Jean, then rejoined Steve and stretched out beside him. They both began to prepare their dinner rations in comfortable silence. Nearby, Clint and Natasha were doing weapons maintenance, and Wanda sat with them.

After the scare with Spider-Man, Jean had instituted stricter rules about solo ventures, and Kel in turn had written herself an exemption. She came and went as she pleased, returning at least once a day with fangs or a venom sac from whatever creature had been unlucky enough to cross her path. Each night, she worked a new coat of venom into one of her swords, and that was the task that occupied her at the moment, a safe distance from where the humans had their food.

The remaining group consisted of Spider-Man, Tony and Jean (although, for the record, Jean was conscientious about not playing favorites and rotated dining companions each evening). Tony had been determinedly keeping to himself since the expedition had begun, at least insofar as the other Avengers were concerned. He would occasionally exchange pleasantries with Natasha, but the rest of them were held strictly at arm's length.

It shouldn't have been that way. Steve wanted to try… all right, he didn't know, exactly, but _something_. But Tony had made his position clear, that day at the suspension bridge. There was nothing the rest of them could do besides give him his space.

Later, after they'd both eaten, Sam caught his eye and discreetly tilted his head in Jean's direction. "She's doing all right," he said.

"Yeah."

"That's good, isn't it? If we're doing the nine against an army thing, guaranteed we'll have to split up at some point. Having multiple qualified team leaders expands our options."

What else could he say? The statement was accurate. "Yeah."

Sam put on his best 'you're not fooling anyone' look, and said, "What's the matter — you feeling underappreciated?"

Steve gave a dry chuckle. "Not exactly. Just… still adjusting to my limitations."

"Three weeks ago, there was no way you could have done all this. Give yourself credit for a hell of a lot of progress."

"Yeah," Steve said again, and grinned at Sam's glare. "Don't worry, Sam, I haven't forgotten how bad a slump I was in before. It's just…" From among the various matters on his mind, he searched for one that wouldn't resist being put into words. "It's frustrating, not knowing what the outcome is going to be. I'm still recovering — I can accept that." (With seething resentment, but still.) "The part no one can tell me is what 'recovered' will look like. Or if I'll get there by the time all hands are needed." He smiled again, self-deprecatingly. "So I guess it's a little hard to get excited over how well my replacement is doing."

"Hey," Sam said sternly, "no one's replacing you."

He had to say that, really. But it was still nice to hear.

Steve had had many conversations with Aaron over the past few weeks, and each one had come with the disclaimer that empathy was not an exact science. Aaron could make educated guesses about Steve's condition, but not guarantees. As far as they both understood it, the strands that had invaded Steve's body were physically blocking the growth of the hyperdense muscle fibers and other such structures that had given Steve his physical enhancements. But the serum was still in his bloodstream, trying to make repairs. Once they'd gotten the nutrition problem figured out, his stamina had rebounded immediately. (To a point, at least. Still so very far to go.)

(Then there had been the other pieces of their conversations — the ones involving terms like 'depression' — that Steve was quarantining far to the back of his mind, to be dealt with at some unspecified future date.)

Anyway. He tried to focus on the part where he was here and keeping up, not on the part where he was useless.

Once Kel was done with her sword, she joined Jean and the two of them held a brief, whispered conversation. Then Jean requested everyone's attention.

"Before we travel any further," she said, "there's something we need to discuss."

"We came down out of the hills much further than I expected," Kel said. "I think we're at the same level as the bottom of the waterfall now. If we continue to go south, there's a good chance we'll find kethysh territory."

Sam and Clint both groaned.

Spider-Man said, "Those are the huge cats, right?"

"'Huge' doesn't begin to cover it, believe me," Sam said.

"What are you complaining about?" Clint asked him. "You never even got close to it."

"Oh, I got plenty close," Sam retorted. "It showed up at the outpost just as we were leaving. Ten seconds later, we'd've been cat food."

"I got close enough to stab it," Natasha countered.

"The point," Jean said, "is that a twenty-foot leopard—"

"Jaguar," said Natasha.

"—wouldn't hesitate to make us into a mid-morning snack. We need to decide how to proceed."

"Just so I have this," Tony said, "it's a twenty-foot jaguar—"

"Leopard," said Jean.

"—and the topic under discussion is whether or not to ring its front doorbell?" He spread his hands. "Am I missing something? What could _possibly_ be on your 'pros' list?"

"I agree with Tony," Steve said, which got some looks. "We've already run into hazards we hadn't anticipated. There's nothing we can learn out here that's so crucial as to be worth the risk."

"Kethyshi are solitary, and each one holds a huge territory," Kel said. "I think it isn't likely that one is close."

Clint said, "Okay, but if one _is_ close, we're all dead. Seems like a crap wager to me."

"If the only weapons we had were swords and spears," Jean said, "then I agree — there would be no debate. But I think we can do a little better." She turned to her right. "Tony, you've studied the ways in which this universe's natural laws differ from our own. By any chance, have you examined what happens to gunpower?"

He gave her a sidelong look. "I had a slow morning once, roughed out some figures. The explosive yield is enhanced significantly. But we don't have any gunpowder — and _please_ don't tell me you're thinking about that _Star Trek_ episode where—"

"No. I was thinking about this."

She crossed to the pile of saddlebags that sat next to Harold, and dug into the recesses of one of the many pockets. When she sat back down again, she placed in front of her a box of twenty 30-06 rifle cartridges.

"Oh," Tony said. " _That_ gunpowder. Where the hell did you get those?"

"Yeah, that's a good question," Clint said. "Prisoners are searched on arrival, aren't they?"

"I wasn't," Kel said.

"Remember, we had a long time to plan this," Jean said. "I sent some supplies with Kel that I thought might be useful. At the moment, we could use a grenade and a delivery system. Tony, Clint — can it be done?"

It was Clint's turn to look at her sideways. "Lemme get this straight," he said. "You want to pour some gunpowder into a leaf or something, tie a fuse to it, stick the whole thing on the end of an arrow and call it a grenade?"

"Approximately, yes. Will it work?"

He shrugged. "Yeah, sure."

"Easy," Tony added.

"Excellent," Jean said. "Kel, what do you think?"

"Useless from the outside," she said. "Its skin is too thick. But it's built like any other animal that keeps its brain inside its head. In the neck are major blood vessels, larynx, esophagus. Fire your weapon into its mouth, and yes, I think you could kill it."

"Obviously, there are still risks," Jean continued. "But the argument in favor is that we'll be back here someday. If the enemy takes this route to cross the river, we'll have to be ready to cut them off. I for one would rather learn to cope with the natural hazards before we also have to cope with an army." She looked around at her audience. "Opinions?"

"Well, I think we should keep going," Spider-Man said.

"Thank you, Peter. Anyone else?"

She was winning them over. Tony had already opened the ammunition box and started to fiddle with a couple of the cartridges. Clint and Nat, with occasional comments from Kel, started talking about the last time they'd seen one of these animals in action, and how they might convince it to open its mouth long enough to swallow a grenade. (Or, more specifically, to swallow _just_ the grenade. Getting it to open its mouth probably wasn't going to be an issue.) Wanda ventured some ways that she could telekinetically pin it or deflect it.

And it should have been a good thing, right? Clint and Tony were discussing projectile designs and not trying to punch each other. The entire point of the mission, perhaps even more so than the reconnaissance aspect, was to get the team working together again.

Steve granted the possibility that he was hesitant only because he wouldn't be able to help. The march alone sapped the bulk of his energy each day; in a combat situation where speed and agility were critical, he would be a liability. Maybe that was all — the same loss of control that he'd been struggling with all the while.

But he couldn't shake the feeling that this wouldn't be nearly as easy as Jean seemed to believe.

 

* * *

 

The next morning, Jean stood on an outcropping of rock overlooking the water, and said, "Steve, Tony — talk to me about crossing rivers."

Steve raised a hand to shield his eyes from the glare of the sun, and squinted across the water to the far bank. The river channel had widened by about thirty yards compared with the ravine. It flowed smoothly, without rapids, and was clearly much deeper than the height of a person.

"There's no way a fully equipped army could ford this," Steve said. "They'll have to stop and build a bridge."

"If they've got anything like a combat engineering corps, it won't take that long," Tony added.

"What would you look for in a construction site?"

"Low, stable banks on both sides, and a slow current."

"And how about us?" Jean asked. "If you had to get this team to the other side, how would you do it?"

"You want to cross?" Steve asked.

"We're already committed to a two-week fact-finding mission. If we return along the opposite bank, we can potentially double our number of facts."

"Rafts," Tony said. "With guiding poles if the water's shallow enough, oars if it isn't. I haven't measured the specific gravity of every local wood species, but even with conservative estimates, it shouldn't be too hard to build a structure that can support five adults plus gear. Or, equivalently, Harold."

"All right." Jean hopped down from her perch. "We're vulnerable out here, and there's only so far I'm prepared to tempt fate. We'll spend half a day here, no more. After that, we need to either cross or turn back. Tony, could you finish construction in that time?"

"With everyone working on it? Sure, not a problem."

"Good. Run your materials list by Kel — she might know what the low-density species are."

"On it, Boss-Lady."

The look she shot him was dire. "Oh, please don't."

He grinned and headed downstream at a light jog. Jean and Steve followed together at a more modest pace.

"I've been wondering if you have anything you want to say to me," Jean told him once they were alone. "It's been clear since last night that you don't approve of what I'm doing."

"It's not my call," Steve said.

"That's hardly the point. I'd hoped I'd made it clear that I value your input."

"If I had concrete input for you, believe me, you'd be the first to know." Steve's mouth twisted up in… well, he wasn't even sure if it was a wry smile or a frustrated scowl. There was no telling what Jean made of it. "But I don't know what worries me," he said. "That's the problem. Part of me wants to say that you're pushing the team into risks we're not ready for. But maybe they're ready, and I just know that _I'm_ not. Physically, I mean. If we run into trouble, there's not much I can do. It's… not an easy thing to accept."

Jean nodded. "I can appreciate that," she said. "Your instincts are to take action, to be the one who protects your team. And, at least for the moment, you can't do any of those things."

"Yes," Steve said dryly. "Thank you for putting it so clearly."

Unruffled, she continued, "Something I've struggled to do is let go of the idea that I can plan for everything in advance. That if I'm systematic enough, I can foresee all possible endpoints. I can't. If nothing else, your arrival here drove that point home." She flashed him a quick smile. "I can't have it all mapped out, so I have to trust in the skills and experience of the people around me. They can adapt to whatever comes their way. My job, much of the time, is simply to let them do their jobs."

Ah. Steve began to grasp the basic thrust of her remarks. "In other words," he said, "I'm superfluous and I should get over it."

"Not quite how I would have put it, but if that works for you." She caught his eye, and they both chuckled.

"Thanks," Steve said. Then, because she would understand what he meant by it, he added, "For not screwing up my team too badly until I can take them back from you."

"Don't mention it."

The team's assets included two axes, various hand tools, and an unparallelled climber in the form of Spider-Man. Once Tony found a tree whose properties suited him — something from the cedar family, Steve would have said back home — it was easy enough to obtain a log of suitable dimensions.

"Will it work?" Jean asked.

"Yeah, it'll work," Tony said. "Better if the wood were seasoned, but I'm guessing you don't want to set up here for a few weeks while it dries out."

"That wouldn't be my first choice."

Wanda frowned in concentration. Her hand came up, fingers splayed, and a fine red shimmer surrounded the log. She drew her hand back slowly, like she was pulling taffy, and the red began to flow in her direction. There was a sudden scent of moisture in the air.

Then, with a startling burst of light, the entire log shattered.

"That's maybe a hair _too_ seasoned," Tony said.

"I almost had it."

"Maybe practice on some smaller ones," Clint suggested, "and not the ones I have to chop out of a hundred-foot tree."

Wanda nodded. "Good idea."

"Anyway," Tony said, "we lash the logs together, reinforce with crossbars, and… that's it. Not exactly the Large Hadron Collider."

"Very well." Jean gestured to the group. "We're your workforce. Tell us what to do."

Spider-Man ferried Clint and Sam up into the crown of the tree to chop more wood. Some people were put to work shaping the felled branches into bare, uniform logs, while others — Steve among them — plaited long strips of bark into lashings. Wanda got the hang of extracting a suitable amount of moisture from the logs, rendering them more buoyant. Kel, who was at a disadvantage when it came to construction work, took over perimeter security.

They worked through the morning with no major problems and no giant cats. It took more than one tree to fill Tony's lumber order, but trees were something they had in abundance. Steve began to think that his earlier worries had all been for nothing.

Then Clint came jogging up from his final shift as a lumberjack, and said, "I spotted something that everyone needs to take a look at."

They followed him to a massive, willow-ish tree that leaned out over the river. Clint pointed upward. Steve took a few steps back, and shielded his eyes. Gouged into the bark, at least sixty feet above the ground, was a deep set of scratch marks.

"Wow," said Spider-Man. "That really _is_ a huge cat."

"Can you take me up there?" Kel asked him.

"Sure! Hop on!"

She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, and he spider-climbed them both up to the marks.

"They're fresh," Kel said when she returned. "Less than a day."

"So the animal could still be in the area," Steve said.

"I can't sense it. But it can smell us from a distance that's out of my range."

"Or it could be long gone," Jean said. "Still, weapons at the ready, everyone. We've got enough raw material for the third raft now, so let's finish construction and get out of here."

The work crews were no longer relaxed. They did their jobs silently and urgently. Kel was visibly on edge and floated in and out of the vicinity, as if a few yards this way or that would give her a better empathic view.

One of her jaunts took her out of sight for several minutes. She reappeared at a run and announced, "The kethysh is south of us, and it comes this way."

"How long?" Jean asked.

Kel's reply was in her own language.

"Roughly four minutes," Jean said. "Tony?"

"Close, but not quite," he replied. "I hope it's occurred to you that—"

"Yes, I know they can swim," she said. "If one is hunting us, then we can't leave it at our backs. But I'd still like to make a quick exit afterward. Let's keep working."

They worked. All of the building supplies had long since been moved to the edge of the river, on a patch of gravel that lay beneath a small embankment. One of the rafts was already in the water, tethered to shore and loaded with most of the gear. The second was just a few logs away from being completed to Tony's specifications, while the third was maybe halfway there.

Steve plaited rope. Others trimmed down the logs, shaped oars and crossbars, and lashed the components together. The second raft was tethered and launched. Just a few more minutes now.

"If we want to do this," Kel said, "we need to get ready."

Jean was calm and composed. "Clint, Wanda, Kel," she said. "As we discussed. Let's go."

She and Clint had their bows and their homemade grenades. Jean also carried her spear. Kel unsheathed her poisoned sword, and led the way.

The trees, being so large, were spaced relatively far apart. Lines of sight extended further than one might have expected for forested terrain. That was why, when Steve looked up over the small ridge that was the construction team's only cover, he saw the kethysh appear, perhaps fifty yards downstream, stalking through the trees.

It was huge in a way that the mind refused to accept. For a moment, Steve found it easier to believe that the trees had suddenly shrunk. Every piece of the cat, from the bared fangs to the massive paws to the lightly twitching tail, was flagrantly impossible. It could swallow a grown man whole. It could shatter one of their rafts with a swipe of its claws. And they were planning to kill it with a packet of gunpowder on a stick.

The rest of the team was supposed to be working, but the same animal instinct had gripped them all. They froze in place like rabbits who'd spotted a hawk.

The cat crept up on the prey, and the prey laid an ambush for the cat. Jean and Clint were behind trees on opposite sides of the cat's path. They each had a grenade arrow at the ready. Tony had rigged it somehow so that the act of drawing back the bowstring would ignite the fuse. All they needed was a clear shot. Wanda was several yards further back, ready to block the cat's charge if she had to. Kel was not in sight.

The cat was creeping closer. Either it hadn't noticed the rest of the team or it didn't care. Its attention was focused on the section of trees up ahead where Jean and Clint were hiding. Its ears were cupped forward and its tail flicked faster. It moved closer still.

Jean suddenly broke cover and bolted across its path, and the cat exploded into motion. Its impossibly strong body seemed to cover the remaining distance in a single stride. Clint stepped out in front of Jean and drew—

And from out of nowhere, Kel slammed into him and snatched the arrow from his hand. She body-checked him to the ground, stomped out the fuse, and dashed out between the cat's paws. It pivoted in response to the new target and took a swipe at her. She threw herself flat and sliced with her sword. The cat gave a sharp yowl and danced backward, flicking its paw in the air.

" _Explanation, now_!" Jean bellowed.

"Two Nyth and five Mjentur northeast," Kel called back, "maybe close enough to hear the explosion, _definitely_ close enough to find the corpse and see we killed it!"

"What are _they_ doing here?"

"I didn't ask!"

Seven days' worth of the best poisons this planet had to offer turned out to be only as distracting as lemon juice on a paper cut. The cat licked its paw fiercely for a few seconds, but that was all the respite they'd bought.

Natasha grabbed her sword and Sam's spear. "Finish the raft," she whispered, and took off upstream.

Steve couldn't help. He _had_ to help. But he couldn't. Kel dashed out again, her preternatural reflexes barely enough to keep her out of the cat's claws. It chased her and swatted, and its claws left deep gouges in the ground where she'd been an instant before. She darted for cover but the cat was right with her — and only pulled up when Jean ran out behind it and thrust her spear deep into its back paw. It growled and spun in place, and was distracted again when Clint stepped out from a different angle and threw a baseball-sized rock into its ear. It stopped to scratch the itch, and its three targets scattered.

"Got another plan?" Clint called. He was facing in Steve's direction with his back to a tree, for what momentary cover that could provide.

"Finalizing certain details," Jean replied from somewhere out of sight. The composure was gone. There was plain panic in her tone.

"Broad strokes, then."

"We're going to make it angry."

"Wow. That's a terrible plan," said Clint.

"She fits right in, doesn't she?" said Nat. She popped up next to Clint and handed him the spear.

Clint gave her a nod, and the two of them broke cover in opposite directions. The cat hesitated for a second, then zeroed in on Clint. He cut around another tree trunk in the nick of time, and Nat pulled the same trick of targeting one of the cat's back paws. She sliced at the pad with her sword, and the cat rounded on her with a yowl. She too bolted for cover.

Little by little, they were drawing it further from the river bank.

Wanda hopped over the embankment and landed beside Steve. She was carrying both bows and quivers. "Jean sent me back," she said, looking stricken. "To protect you, if it comes this way."

From further off than last time, Jean's voice came, "Get those rafts in the water! If we can't cross the river, we're dead. We'll keep it busy. _Hurry_!"

Yes. Steve could do that. It was the only thing he could do, besides trust his people to do their jobs.

They were almost done. Three more logs. Two. Then the last one. Tony and Peter lined it up, and Steve and Sam cinched their lashings tight.

"It's done, ferry's leaving!" Tony shouted.

"Then go!" came the answering call. "We're inbound!"

"Kid, you go with the luggage," Tony said, and started to untether the first raft.

"But—"

" _No_. Get going, we're right behind you."

From somewhere beneath the trees, a woman's voice cried out in pain, and Steve surged to his feet because he _couldn't_ —

"I'll go, _I'll go_!" Sam barked. "The rest of you move out!" He scrambled to the top of the rocks and took off into the forest.

"Rogers, we gotta move," Tony said.

"You go," Steve said, still staring out at the trees. None of the team was in sight anymore.

"It's five per raft, there's five of them coming. _Dammit_ , Steve!"

Steve turned then, and found Tony with his hand partly outstretched, like he'd stopped short of grabbing Steve's arm.

"She'll bring them back," Tony said. "You stay here, you make things worse."

He was right.

They boarded the second raft, and Wanda gave them a telekinetic push out onto the river. The current caught them immediately, and sent them downstream at a solid clip. Tony and Wanda worked the oars.

Steve counted the seconds as they drew away from the bank, and before he'd reached ten, the final group appeared. They were all together — Jean, Clint, Kel and Sam. Sam was carrying Natasha. There was a claw mark across her chest and arm, and another one across her torso. Both bled heavily. She was conscious, but barely.

The five of them piled onto the final raft, and shoved off. Kel and Sam immediately leaned over Natasha and began to examine her injuries. There was no sign of the cat.

They'd almost reached the halfway point of the river crossing when Spider-Man finally remembered whose luggage he was sitting on. He turned back to the other two rafts and called out, "What about the horse? You guys, we forgot Harold!"

"Nah, kid," Clint answered. "We didn't forget."

"What? But…"

"If we'd killed the kethysh," Kel said, "then the Nyth would have found it and known that they have enemies here. So we had to leave it alive. But then we had to give it a good reason not to follow us into the river."

Jean said nothing. She rowed mechanically, eyes fixed on the far bank.

They did catch one last glimpse of the cat. It was trotting south, no longer in hunting mode, perhaps headed back to whatever it had been doing before it had caught their scent. The distance made it look almost normal-sized. Hanging from its mouth were the tattered remnants of a glittery wing.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tony is referring to the Star Trek original series episode "Arena", in which Captain Kirk manufactures gunpowder out of, essentially, stuff he finds lying around.
> 
> Also... sorry, Harold.


	31. Chapter 31

"I'm fine."

"No, you're not."

"This is absurd."

"No, it isn't."

"Whatever it is you think you're doing, I do _not_ need you to be doing it."

"Yeah, you do."

"Tony…"

(He wasn't good at this stuff. He _knew_ he wasn't good at this stuff. But besides Kel, he was the only one she could let down her guard around, and he owed her the effort several times over.)

"Harold was a good horse. As sparkling lizards go."

Jean covered her mouth with her hand almost in time to catch the sob that burst out of her throat. Tony wrapped her up in his arms, and they stayed that way for a good long while.

 

* * *

 

Sam had seen soldiers survive far worse wounds than Natasha's, but only with prompt evac to properly equipped medical facilities. Trapped in the wilderness, at least a week away on foot from any kind of help, with only rudimentary first-aid supplies, he would have put her chances at somewhere around miraculous.

Luckily, there was an empathic healer around to skew the odds.

The abdominal laceration had done considerable muscle damage but hadn't penetrated the abdominal cavity. It was the other slice, across her chest and arm, that was the real problem, because it had caught the brachial artery. Probably no more than thirty seconds had passed between the hit and someone getting to her, but in that time, Nat had lost an alarming amount of blood. Kel had repaired the artery along with the rest of the tissue damage, but there was only so much she could do about hypovolemia. Sam didn't want to perform a field transfusion unless he absolutely had to. For the moment, they were going with rehydration, iron supplements, and time.

The other serious concern was the possibility of infection. They'd cleaned both claw marks thoroughly and administered antibiotics, but there was no way to be sure besides a few days' observation. The downside of Kel's capacity to close wounds was that, if an infection did set in, the wound would need to be reopened in order to drain. Again, not something Sam wanted to do unless absolutely necessary; again, there was nothing for it but to wait and see.

The river had taken them even deeper into giant leopard territory. As soon as they'd landed, they'd built a litter for Natasha and set out north, back up the hill that they'd just spent a week descending.

The command changeover occurred unceremoniously. Sam was pretty sure Jean and Steve nodded to each other once, and that was it. Steve set a harder pace than they'd previously sustained, and Sam guessed that it was due in equal measures to concerns about giant leopards and to feeling like he had something to prove. Everyone except Kel, Steve and the Spider-kid took turns carrying the litter. Conversation was kept to a minimum. They climbed.

The kid was despondent. Sam couldn't even make fun of him for it. Taking care of the horse had been his thing. Adding insult to injury, as the sole representative of the super-strength brigade, Spider-boy was carrying most of the extra gear. He plodded along, almost buried beneath saddlebags that hadn't been designed for someone person-shaped. Tony kept the kid company, sending him a low-key stream of chit-chat throughout the afternoon. There was also a noticeable uptick in the claps on the back and arms over shoulders during rest breaks. It surprised the hell out of Sam, frankly. He'd never thought of Tony as particularly nurturing.

Jean, also, was taking the incident hard, although less overtly so. She'd personally put the horse down before leaving it as a consolation prize for the leopard. Sam had to give her credit: she hadn't hesitated. But the act had clearly taken its toll.

Sam was still working out just how much he blamed her for that morning. _Not much_ , was probably the answer. She hadn't led them in blindly — they'd had a plan to deal with the threat. None of them had imagined a scenario where they'd have to leave the damned cat alive.

For the most part, they took care not to be visible from the other side of the ravine. But at one point in the early afternoon, after they'd been hiking for about an hour, Kel summoned them to the edge and silently pointed across. Dark green spilled down the side of the opposite rock face like God had kicked over a can of paint. This could only be the killer moss.

"We weren't nearly this far south when you found the moss the first time," Steve said. "Either this is a different patch, or…"

"Or it followed us," Kel said.

Steve looked at Jean. "I guess it's a good thing we crossed the river when we did."

She acknowledged the remark with only the slightest tilt of her head.

This side of the ravine didn't have the ledge that they'd descended the previous day. Instead, it had a slightly steeper gradient overall. They gained altitude at a solid clip. By the time they halted, the opposite bank lay well below them, and the trees had shrunk down to more sensible proportions.

Sam was pretty sure Steve only stopped them when he was physically incapable of taking another step. He gave the word, then basically leaned back and slid down the side of a tree, not that Sam blamed him for it. Between the uphill terrain, the litter, and the lack of horse, the whole group was wiped out.

Sam's own condition was probably the least dire out of all the humans (Kel had to be omitted so her alien stuff didn't screw up the curve). Sure, every muscle in his body was screaming, and his hands were blistered from the turns he'd taken carrying the litter, and if Kel ran out of that muscle rub he would very seriously consider a mutiny… but he wasn't drained dry like a few of the others were. Good thing, too, because he had responsibilities still.

Clint and Wanda set Natasha's litter down. Natasha pretended not to notice as Clint unfurled her bedroll for her, and also pretended not to need both of them to help her transfer from one to the other and lie down again.

"Not to be paranoid," Natasha said once she was settled, "but this is twice now that I've been swatted by one of those jaguars. I'm starting to think the species has it in for me."

"Maybe it's because you keep calling them jaguars instead of leopards," Sam said. He cleaned his hands, then checked her wounds. No redness, swelling, or change in temperature.

Her look was one of deepest indignation. " _Sam_. Don't tell me you're switching sides."

"Hey, the other night, Jean made some persuasive arguments about rosettes and skull proportions."

"Leopards don't _swim_."

"Maybe they only swim when no one's watching."

Unable to assail his unassailable argument, Natasha simply rolled her eyes.

"In fairness to the jaguars," Clint said, "you _do_ keep stabbing them in the foot. Any cat would take that personally."

"I'll stop stabbing them when they stop swatting me," Natasha said. "Maybe I'm just getting slow in my old age."

"What old age?" Clint scoffed. "You're like half my age. You're like the age of my _socks_. You're like _half_ the age of my socks."

There was a pause.

"That was an alarming escalation," said Nat.

"Yeah, it really was," said Sam.

"Wanda, could you disintegrate his socks, please?"

"Yes, I think that would be best."

"Also, could all of you stop looking at me like I'm on my deathbed?" Nat asked. "Don't get me wrong, I'm planning to milk the free ride for as long as possible, but the scenery is depressing as hell."

Clint sniffed. "There's gratitude for you. I am more than just a piece of scenery."

"You're not even a piece of scenery," Nat countered.

"Let's not overexcite the patient," Sam said, because he knew it would annoy her. "Nat, you still feeling all right? Any fever?"

She glowered. "Sam, if you touch my forehead one more time, I will break every finger bone you've got."

"Fine, _don't_ let me do my job. You drinking enough water?"

"Leave now."

They left. (It was _not_ fun standing up again.) Clint and Wanda set up close by. Kel and Jean had made a perimeter sweep and were headed in Steve's direction, and Sam joined them.

"How's Nat doing?" Steve asked once they were seated around him.

"She's in good shape, all things considered," said Sam. "Kel repaired the tissue damage. But she's still recovering from the blood loss, and it's too early to rule out the possibility of infection."

"Even with no complications, it will be a day or two at least before she can walk a long distance," Kel added. "And, of course, to carry her means the rest of us go slower."

Steve nodded. "Do we have any idea why the scorpions were in the area?"

"A guess? They came to study the moss. The Nyth are very alien. Hard to read. But the Mjentur didn't feel the way I would expect on a combat mission. I don't think it had anything to do with us. It was… when two things happen together, but not for a reason."

"Coincidence," Jean said.

"It was this, as far as I can tell. I can go back across the river to scout more, if you want."

"No," Steve said firmly. "It's too risky."

Jean wasn't the most emotive of people. Her response wasn't a flinch or a grimace so much as… a modulation in the quality of her stillness. But Sam knew her well enough by now to notice it, and it turned out that Steve did, too.

"That wasn't a dig at you," Steve said.

"It didn't need to be," she replied. "The facts speak for themselves."

"You're right," Steve said. "I thought trespassing on jaguar territory was too risky. I would have turned back first thing this morning. And it turns out that would have trapped us between the moss and the scorpions."

"You couldn't have known that."

"You couldn't have known that you'd have to leave the cat alive. Someone reminded me recently that we can't foresee every contingency."

She did her tiny head-tilting thing again, neither granting the point nor disputing it.

"All things considered, I think we need to take another rest day, if not two," Steve continued. "I, uh…" He paused for a long moment. "I know I can't do another day like today. Frankly, I'm not sure I'll be able to walk tomorrow. So what's your assessment of this place as a rest stop?"

Kel, wisely, didn't react to what Steve had just said. "Could be worse," she said. "And I agree — necessary."

Sam asked her, "Any scorpions come across your scanner recently?"

"No, we left them behind a long time ago," she said. "I can't say for sure if they'll cross the river or not, since I don't know for sure why they're here. But if it is about the moss, then… not so likely, I think."

Steve asked, "And the kethyshes?"

"Kethyshi," Kel said. "They prefer territory with the very large trees. For one to come this far north… not impossible, but very unusual."

He nodded. "All right. Assuming no new threats present themselves, we'll stay here."

"It's past my turn to stand watch," Jean said.

"No, I'll do it," Sam said quickly.

"None of you will do it," said Kel. "I'll take tonight, the whole thing. Everyone else sleeps."

"I don't think that's a good idea," Steve said. "You don't want to burn yourself out."

"I'm nowhere close," Kel said. "I don't need as much sleep as a human. My body repairs much faster. It's fine, and you all need this."

Somewhat dubiously, Steve nodded. "All right. Just for tonight. And thank you."

No one wanted to stand up again. They shifted along the ground until they'd opened up their circle into more of a line, then relayed the plan to the rest of the group.

"Out of curiosity," Clint said, "if one of those very unusual but not impossible jaguars shows up, do we have any idea what we're going to do about it?"

"I think there's no choice now," Jean said. "We would have to kill it and take our chances."

Steve asked, "Are you and Clint ready for that?"

They sized each other up, and traded nods. "If need be."

"Good, 'cuz we're out of horses."

That, of course, had been Peter.

"Come on, kid, that's not fair," Tony said quietly.

"Really? You mean there _is_ another horse? I'm pretty sure I didn't see one."

Kel stood and walked to him — not aggressively, but firmly. "Come with me," she said.

He glared. "What for?"

"For a conversation."

Peter looked to Tony, and got no help. He clambered to his feet with a groan and slouched off behind her.

Jean, unsurprisingly, retreated to her own corner and began prepping her sleeping area in silence. Pretty much everyone who hadn't already done so began to follow suit.

Sam stayed with Steve a little longer, and gave him a hand with his gear. "You're making the right call," he said quietly. "For everyone."

Steve didn't protest the help. "I'm doing my best," he said. "Just keep a close eye on Nat, all right?"

"Don't worry. She's already threatened me with bodily injury. If that doesn't say 'on the mend' to you…"

Steve grinned. "Goodnight, Sam."

In fact, the sun hadn't fully set yet, but the group quickly shifted into nighttime mode. Steve's eyes closed the instant he lay down. Nat was asleep, and Clint and Wanda were close to it. Tony, however, was still sitting up, cross-legged, staring at nothing. Obviously he wasn't going to rest until Kel and the kid got back.

Sam had, at various times, spotted Tony and Steve gazing wistfully at the other's turned back. That was way more nonsense than he was volunteering to manage (and he felt that Jean had the right of it, too, by not attempting to mediate or do anything more than quash outright hostility). But it at least left open the possibility that Tony might be receptive to a friendly gesture.

He didn't know Tony all that well. Frankly, he was still adjusting to the idea that Tony Stark was someone he _knew_ , rather than someone he knew _of_. The majority of their acquaintanceship had been formed while Tony had been upgrading his wings, and designing and testing Redwing. Sam's overwhelming impression had been of a man with more mental energy than his frame could contain. The only things that could keep up with him were his own computer systems. Sam had just shown up, looked pretty, and watched the magic happen.

Tony was far more subdued now. Ten months of captivity could do that to a person.

Sam heaved himself off the ground — once more, just _once_ more — and crossed to join him. "Mind if I sit down?"

Tony's eyes flicked upward momentarily, then went back to staring at nothing. "Free planet," he said. "Well — aside from all the slave labor."

Sam had gotten warmer welcomes, but that was all right. "Nice work with the rafts today."

"Yeah. Tying sticks together. Highly innovative."

"Saved our asses. That's what counts."

Tony gave a sigh and finally turned to face him. "Is there something I can do for you, Wilson?"

Sam spread his hands. "Hey, I'm just trying to mend some fences."

"And you were moved to do this right now because…"

Sam had long since stopped being impressed by defense mechanisms. "Because we're staying put for a while, and it makes sense to max out the number of people I can have a conversation with. I don't know if you noticed, but this place doesn't get cable."

Tony gave an unamused sort of huff at that. He picked up a stick and started idly poking at the ground in front of him. Since none of that had been a clear signal to go away, Sam stayed put and waited.

As he'd suspected, Tony was one of those people who didn't care for conversational pauses. "Natasha's— she's asleep, right?" Tony checked over his shoulder quickly. "Natasha's way off the mark on this one. It was obviously a leopard."

" _Thank_ you."

The light was fading. There was no campfire: it didn't get cold enough at night to need one, and they were trying to minimize the traces they left, as much as a party of nine could hope to do so. The reds and oranges of the sunset had faded from the sky and the first stars were beginning to appear when Tony spoke next.

"You were clear," he said quietly.

Sam blinked. "Sorry?"

"In Germany. You and Rogers and… um. You'd broken the perimeter. Free and clear. But you came back for Rhodey. You tried. That's…" He trailed off, and stabbed his stick into the ground a couple more times. "Anyway. Sorry for the…" He flexed his wrist back, miming a repulsor blast.

From the instant he'd turned back, Sam had known that he would be apprehended, and that it wouldn't be gentle. That fact hadn't figured into his decision (because there hadn't _been_ a decision), it had simply existed as part of the necessary cost. "No more than I expected, given the circumstances," he said. "How's Rhodes doing?"

Tony glared. "How would _you_ be doing?"

But Sam waited it out, and eventually Tony sighed again and looked down at his hands.

"Rhodey's healing," he said. "He's coping. Probably better than I am. I'm working on prosthetics. Everything's a temporary measure right now, the prototype's glitchy and the design's got a thousand things wrong with it — we're still figuring out how to _turn_ , for crying out loud — but… gotta start somewhere."

"I'm sure he appreciates it."

"Yeah. Great. This isn't some kind of lead-in to you trying to broker something between me and Rogers, is it, because—"

"Not if you _paid_ me," Sam said with complete sincerity. "Whatever's between the two of you is your own business. All I'm interested in is where you and I stand."

Tony chewed it over for a bit, and eventually said, "I'm not aware of any… regions of active hostility. You?"

Back when Tony'd first come to see him after Germany… yeah, Sam had been pissed. Getting tossed into a secret prison without so much as a wink at due process could make a guy uncharitable. But time and distance had lent perspective. Ross's obsessions weren't Tony's fault.

"No, I'm good."

At some point, Sam would have to tell Tony that he knew about Siberia — Tony had a right to know who was up in his business like that — but this wasn't the moment for a topic so high-stakes. One step at a time.

It wasn't a chit-chatty moment at all, in fact. Sam shifted a portion of his attention to the sounds of the forest around them. Jellyfish could become a problem once the team had stopped for the night. More than once, they'd had to pick up and move when one of the damned things had zeroed in on them. But for the moment, at least, what few rustling noises could be heard were small, localized, sporadic. Those were signs of safety.

Finally, after what must have been at least twenty minutes, Kel and the Spider-kid reappeared. (Sam felt rather than heard Tony let go of the breath he'd been holding.)

Expressions were obscured by the darkness, but the kid's body language spoke volumes. Kel led him by the hand, and he slinked along behind her, head bowed. They approached Jean, who sat up quickly enough to suggest that she hadn't been sleeping.

The kid said, simply, "Sorry." His voice was thick with emotion.

"It's all right, Peter," Jean said. "I understand. I'm upset, too."

He looked to Kel, who gave him an approving nod, then turned and made a beeline for his sleeping bag.

Kel and Jean had a quick exchange in sign that Sam was too far away to interpret, after which Jean lay back down and Kel joined Sam and Tony.

Tony gave her the sign for "thanks", and she gave his arm a squeeze in response.

"You should both sleep now," she said softly.

"You sure you're good to stay up the whole night?" Sam asked. "I've got a few more hours in me."

Kel shook her head. "I'm fine. Would be fine another day and night, probably. It was difficult for everyone today. Let me do this."

It was one of those times when Sam just had to trust that she knew her own alien stuff better than anyone else did. He gave in without further fuss and settled down for some well-earned rest.

 

* * *

 

The problem with rest breaks, however necessary, was that it didn't take long for them to get boring. No one in this particular group of people enjoyed being static. Tending to sore muscles and other aches got them through the first morning, but after that, restlessness began to take hold. Sam was kicking himself for not commissioning one of those decks of cards that he'd seen around the camp.

Natasha and Steve took it easy and recuperated, even as they each resented the hell out of it. Peter's spirits had improved, which left Tony noticeably less stressed. Sam and Kel both spent some time neatening up and taking stock of their medical supplies. Everyone who carried weapons cleaned them, and then did it again the next day. Packs were reorganized, rations inventoried.

Clint and Jean had more shooting lessons, and Tony hovered on the periphery. He had a stash of… not exactly feathers, but something close. He and Clint weren't speaking to each other, but at least they could sit on opposite sides of Jean, one whittling arrows and the other attaching flight stabilizers. On the second day, once his legs had loosened up a bit, Sam asked if Jean wanted to change it up with some spear practice, and she cheerfully obliged.

Even the wildlife seemed to be onboard with them taking a breather. Sam suspected that Kel had something to do with that. She went on multiple patrols per day, sometimes for more than an hour, and usually had to clean her sword when she got back. More often than not, the Spider-kid went with her, which helped to keep him out of a permanent fidget.

It was Wanda, though, who found the fruit tree, and that made her a hero. Sam had heard rumors about this apple-ish, pear-ish thing that humans could eat, and now he was finally holding one in his own two hands. After weeks of nothing but the painfully dull camp rations, that mild bit of flavor felt like the best thing that had ever happened to him.

Time passed, however lazily, until they'd arrived at the afternoon of the second day.

The local herbivores weren't as attention-grabbing as the carnivores, for obvious reasons, but they were around. The team had seen a couple groups of stretchy bears along the way, plus oppossums of various sizes, and other small furry and scaly things that played the roles of squirrels and rabbits. This was a new one, though. It had… Lord, it had eight pairs of legs, and it was spiky like a hedgehog (or, Sam supposed, like four hedgehogs in a row). A family of them was trundling along in a line from biggest to smallest. The papa quadri-hedgehog was knee-high and a good three feet long, while the baby was small enough to rest on Sam's forearm.

They were — by this planet's standards, at least — kind of adorable.

"Why all the legs?" Clint said, who apparently wasn't as taken in. "Why the fuck does every goddamned animal on this planet have way more legs than it could possibly need?"

"For the aesthetic," Natasha said.

She was recovered enough to make life difficult for anyone who dared to suggest that she wasn't at full capacity, while not actually _being_ at full capacity. Once they started walking again, they had some pretty mild days ahead of them. On the other hand, her wounds had remained infection-free, and Sam for one was counting his blessings.

Various individual activities had wound down, and the entire group was congregated in relatively close proximity. It wasn't quite time for the evening meal yet, but it was late enough that no one felt like doing anything.

Clint was reclining with one foot hooked over the other knee, idly twirling an arrow between two fingers like it was a drumstick. "Hey, you know what I haven't heard about in a while?" he said. "Nat's top-secret 'details don't add up' investigation. Which means either there was nothing to find, or she found something." He craned his neck to look back in her direction. "So which one is it?"

Natasha and Jean — two women who could each be described as 'inscrutable' — casually turned to look at each other… inscrutably.

"Oh yeah," Clint said. "That's a 'found something' nonreaction. C'mon — there's nobody here but us chickens. Us incredibly bored chickens. Spill."

Sam had mostly been on the periphery of this particular drama. Way, _way_ back — over a month ago, in fact — he'd been taken along for the ride on one of Nat's fishing expeditions. Something about a secondary escape route, if he remembered right. Jean had denied it pretty convincingly, from his admittedly not-a-superspy perspective. Oh — and the night he'd come back from the beta site, Nat had cornered him with a question about when a particular conversation had happened. But whatever the big deal was, no one had let him in on the details.

There were still no details forthcoming — only a matched set of bland expressions.

Jean spoke first (probably a tactical error, but then she wasn't a pro). "Is there a question you want to ask?"

"Is there a question you don't want to answer?" Nat returned.

"No," Clint said firmly. "We don't want a tennis match, we want the dirt. Or else I swear to God I'm gonna spend the rest of the evening whining about it."

"You are a child," Natasha told him.

"And I'm bored, and you've got a secret."

Mercifully, the audience was spared both the whining and the staring contest.

"I think it's fine," Kel said to Jean. "It surprises me that we lasted this long."

Jean gave a faint sigh. "Perhaps you're right." She leaned back against a tree and stretched out her legs in front of her. "Tell us what you found," she said to Natasha. "I'll fill in the rest."

Natasha likewise let her posture relax a bit. "It was Sam who gave me the proof I needed," she said, which was news to Sam. "He told us that you were beaten, and that Kel was in camp with you at the time. He also told me _when_ it happened. You described it as having been over ten months ago, and I assume that the woman who gives the day count each evening would speak precisely about such things. Your conversation with him happened while Kel and I were still on our way back from the garrison raid, less than three weeks after the portal."

Tony'd been quietly squirming ever since Natasha had brought up the beating. But at her final pronouncement, he abruptly sat up straight. "Wait, hold on," he said. "No, that… that doesn't add up."

"Okay, there's that phrase again," Sam said. " _What_ doesn't add up?"

"The timeline," Natasha said. "Think about it, Sam: since she arrived, Kel had to travel to the garrison and convince the Nyth that she wasn't a human collaborator. She had to go from there to the research outpost, and not only give them a refresher course on human physiology, but also help them to develop their drug regimen against the degenerative effects of this universe. It's three days from the landing site to camp, another five to the garrison, another five at least to the outpost, and two days back to camp. The travel alone takes more than two weeks. Add in what should have been a lengthy interrogation and a not-insignificant scientific breakthrough? It's impossible. So my question," she said, and turned to her right, "is this: Kel, how long have you been here?"

Well, shit. When she laid it all out like that… Well, _shit_.

He'd never… Jean and her team had come through in Denver. That was the story, and he'd never even thought to question… But if that _wasn't_ what had happened, then how the hell else could Kel have gotten here?

She wasn't denying it, either. Neither of them were.

"The difference in time between this universe and ours isn't constant," Kel said. "The closer they get to each other, the faster this one moves compared to home. So to say how long something took is a difficult problem. In my personal time, I got to this planet about six months before the portals started."

There was a moment of stunned silence.

"Hold on," Sam said. "I remember Jean being very definite on the idea that the portal was the only way back to Earth."

"It is," Jean said. "But Earth is not the only possible destination."

Clint groaned and smacked his forehead with his free hand. "Of course," he said. "Jesus, how many times did you say it? The scorpions are weapons dealers. How the hell can you do business with a planet you can only talk to for five thirty-second windows every hundred years? You even told us that they hire mercenaries from our side, for fuck's sake. There _have_ to be other ways back and forth."

"My home, j'Brenn, is one of the planets with a stable passage to Venen-ka," Kel said. "We were targeted by the portals many, many centuries ago, but more recently the passage opened and never closed. We buy from them sometimes, allow the soldiers they hire to travel through. After Jean and I had our plan — about three months before the portals were supposed to start, by Earth time — I went home, then traveled through the passage."

Clint asked the obvious question. "Went home _how_?"

And that was when they learned about the fractures.

Sam would be the first to admit that he wasn't really at home with all this cosmic stuff. He definitely wasn't getting it on the level that a scientist like Tony or Jane Foster would get it. But, basically…

Say this universe and the one back home were like two ships at sea, with a rope bridge strung between them. (Technically there were many rope bridges, but the imagery was dicy enough as it was.) The motion of the water sometimes carried them closer together, other times farther apart. People who knew about the bridge could cross at any time, while everyone else had to wait until the ships got close enough together so they could jump.

Or… no, that wasn't quite it. Okay — the two ships were enemies, but the only weapons the crews had left were pistols. So: cross the bridge (it was a _long_ bridge), or wait until they drifted close enough together to fire on each other. The gunshots were the portals: quick, localized, within a narrow window of opportunity.

The _point_ was, the bullets left small cracks in the hull. Fractures — scaling the ships back up until they were universes, and tossing in time as another dimension that could be fractured because Sam wasn't already confused enough — that turned into shortcuts from one planet to another. Cheat codes (to completely switch metaphors) to the normal workings of time and distance. They tended to shift around or even vanish, but a person with an overabundance of nerve who knew where to look could use one to hop between planets as easily as turning a corner.

"Skilled Asgardian magic-users can sense the fractures," Kel said. "At least, this is what I was told. We don't have magic, but we have maps and predictions from centuries of study. There are many fractures that lead from j'Brenn to other worlds. Much more than average. Maybe because we're one of the places that has a permanent path to Venen-ka: the space is weaker."

(Sam's mental image added stress fractures in the ships' hulls near the attachment points of the rope bridge, which, if it really was that long, made a certain amount of sense. Kind of. As much as any of this did.)

"I came to Earth during the convergence," Kel continued. "During that time, there were many, many more temporary pathways open. Harder _not_ to end up somewhere else, sometimes. I wanted to travel to Earth quickly, and this was an easy way to do it. Before I left, I studied our scientists' notes on the Terran fracture so I could find it and come home again."

Natasha asked her, "How far is it from here to the bridge back to your planet?"

"I traveled from the bridge to the garrison in twenty days," Kel said. "But I can hold a much faster pace than a human can."

"Guarded?"

"A small outpost. Usually messages come through before people. I surprised them."

"Hey, here's a problem," Clint said. "Your people and the scorpions are allies, right? Or trading partners, at least? And here you are, declaring war on them. Are you gonna get in trouble back home?"

"I am _shorath_ ," Kel said with a shrug. "My choices are my own. If they complain, Tor will grant them the right to kill me if I ever enter their territory again. Which I won't. But it's true that I have to go home and speak of what we do here."

Another piece of daylight suddenly dawned. "My God, that's the backup plan, isn't it," Sam breathed. "Back on Earth, your buddies said something about the plan, the backup plan, and the second backup plan, and Peter — your Peter, not arachno-Peter — told us how much he hated the backup plan." He stared hard at Jean. "You're not coming back with us, are you? You're going with her."

She gave a faint smile. "I've been invited," she said. "Kel and I have been struggling to determine if we can extend the offer to those of you who face arrest back home. Unfortunately, there are complications."

"The passage leads to territory that's held by a different clan," Kel said. "They are… not an enemy, but also not a friend. I'm _shorath_ — I can go where I choose, as long as I cause no damage. But humans have no names on j'Brenn. No status. One…" She gestured vaguely in Jean's direction. "I don't know how to say it."

"I suspect 'head of cattle' is not inaccurate," Jean said dryly.

"One is still within my rights. But six? I would have to buy this. It means we have to do very well when we take the garrison. Find something valuable to bring back. _Rrzhtik-che_ , maybe. It's very rare. Can't be created on our side of the portal." She shrugged again, helplessly. "This might be enough, but I can't make promises. The fracture back to Earth, if it didn't move too much, is in Tor's territory, but distant. A month, maybe, to get there."

Clint said, "The bridge to Earth, or the fracture or whatever the hell — if we do go home that way, where would we end up?"

"Northern Brazil," Jean replied.

"Pretty country," said Nat.

"I didn't care for the centipedes."

"What's the first plan?" Sam asked. "The non-backup plan?"

"You've already seen Alisha's ability to redirect the attention of an individual or small group," Jean said. "She and Aaron will be going home through the portal, and that's how they plan to evade official notice. But she is also uncertain of her ability to cover five more, particularly given how well known you all are. To complete the list, the final plan is for Kiran — whom you met, I believe? — to create a diversion sufficiently eye-catching as to cover everyone's exit. As a rule, I prefer not to resort to such things, but the options begin to narrow."

"I don't want to fight my way out," Wanda said. "Or cause an explosion, or things like that. It just makes the problems worse. If there's a way we can come back quietly — even if it's dangerous for other reasons — that's what I would want to do."

Sam wasn't so certain. He had some issues with the 'head of cattle' concept. _Serious_ issues. He would need to know a lot more about the best and worst case scenarios before he began to contemplate adding a second hostile alien planet to his itinerary.

"Obviously there are details yet to be pinned down," Jean said. "But one thing I need to make clear is that this conversation cannot, absolutely _cannot_ get out among the general population. If it were known that there is another way off this planet, someone would want to use it."

"One outsider can be overlooked," Kel said. "A small group can be bought. But a force the size of the camp is an act of war. You would be seen as invaders and destroyed, and there would be nothing I could do to stop it. Is it clear? I can't save everyone this way, so we can't talk about it to the rest."

Sam asked, "Are you sure? If it's a way to duck out of this war before it even starts—"

"Yes, I'm sure. I know my race. _Please_ don't test this — it will go badly for all of us."

With that, the conversation hit a lull.

Sam's brain was so overstuffed, it felt like he was going to tip over. He needed to just sit and absorb for a while. The sheer _scope_ of Jean and Kel's operation beggared belief. And he wasn't sure how he felt about the universe turning out to be about as fragile as a cracked egg. That was pretty damned unnerving — like all of reality was being held together by spit and baling wire.

Not for the first time, he wondered why the weirdness in his life couldn't have stayed capped at one brainwashed assassin with a bionic arm. Those were the days.

Then Natasha said, "Tony? The last time you were this quiet in a meeting, things took a turn."

Sam looked over. Tony was staring at the ground again, jaw clenched, and — now that Sam was paying attention — palpably furious.

"A portal," he said, and fixed Jean with a hard stare. "Bridge, fracture, whatever the hell you want to call it. An alien culture of militaristic conquerors has a passageway to Earth, and you knew about it and said nothing. When it was just _this_ portal, I could almost see your point. Brief, self-contained, a small group could go a long way toward mitigating the damage… all right. _Stunningly_ arrogant, but all right. I bought in. But a permanent vulnerability? No — you don't get to keep that to yourself! Not after New York!"

"The fracture has existed, off and on, for centuries," Jean said quietly. "j'Brenithi have shown no interest in Earth."

"It is known that certain Asgardians like your planet," Kel said. "It isn't worth the trouble."

"Can you make that guarantee on behalf of your entire race, for all time?"

"No, of course—"

"How many more of these fractures have we got?"

"Difficult to say. They aren't stable. Probably a small number more."

"How many times?" he said, and looked around the circle. "How many times do I have to _scream_ it before people start listening? New York was just the beginning. The threats are real, they are out there, and _we aren't ready_! We are vulnerable, we are taking _no_ steps to prepare ourselves, and now, guess what — we left the fucking back door unlocked!"

"I told you the problem the first time we met," Jean said. "You know far better than I do the implications of appointing a man like Thaddeus Ross to Secretary of State. Give me the scenario where I take Kel to the federal government and she doesn't end up in a cage. _Please_." She spread her hands. "Tell me I'm needlessly catastrophizing. Tell me nonhumans with powers have nothing to fear in our country. It might be difficult, given that some of your number have already seen the cage in question. And before you argue that one life is a reasonable sacrifice, consider this. Kel, can you tell them your father's full name?"

"He is Tor verak Wyn veresh Kel, hireth j'Brenithi," she said.

"Fine, it's a different word," Tony said. "What does this one mean?"

"Head of clan," Jean said. "Very powerful, in terms of both political and military might. j'Brenithi have ignored us because we have nothing they want and we haven't made them angry. Imprisoning the child of one of the most highly ranked individuals on the planet would constitute making them angry. It might even constitute sufficient provocation to excuse an armed response in the eyes of your friends from Asgard. You said it yourself — we are _not_ ready for that war." She exhaled, and her posture slumped a little. "So I made a call."

"One you had no right to make," Tony retorted.

"Perhaps not. But all the same, it needed to be done."

He shook his head. "I'm not… I need—" He stood abruptly and backed away. "I need some time to think this through. Don't… just _don't_." He made an emphatic 'stay put' gesture, and strode away through the trees.

Nat turned to Clint and asked, "Satisfied?"

"Hey, how the hell was I supposed to know what the secret was?" Clint said. "It was a secret!"

There was another person who hadn't commented yet. "Steve?" Sam prompted. "Where do you stand?"

Steve gave a faint chuckle. "I, uh… was just thinking."

Sam waited, but no, Steve had to have his dramatic moment. "Thinking about what?" he prompted.

"About the time that I stood in a room and decided to put an end to SHIELD. Because it needed to be done. You did what you thought was right," he said to Jean. "Sometimes that's the only thing we can do." Then he pushed himself to his feet. "I'm going to check on Tony."

Nat said pointedly, "Are you _sure_ that's a good idea?"

"If I'm team lead, it's my job."

"I'll say this, Boss-Lady," Clint said once Steve was gone. "You've got ridiculous amounts of nerve. Like, I can't even work out where you're keeping it all."

Kel said quietly, "A lot of this is my fault. I wanted to help. But I didn't think about… Planets that don't talk to their neighbors yet can be really _weird_ about it."

"You mean we're the eccentric shut-ins?" said Clint. He leaned back and looked up at the sky. "Holy shit, we're the Boo Radley of the galaxy."

"If we do take the long way home," Sam said, "what's the travel time overall?"

"At least a month overland here," Jean said, "and another month on Kel's world. After the final portal, time will still be accelerated here relative to Earth, but not as drastically, and the differential will decrease as time passes. Kel, you ran the numbers once, didn't you?"

"Your weeks go in sevens, yes?" She pulled a face, and rattled off something in her own language.

"Between five and six weeks, as measured on Earth," Jean rendered it.

Great. And the alternative was hiding behind some kind of diversion, either magical or telepathic. Sam honestly wasn't sure, if he had to choose right that second, which option he'd pick.

Kel suddenly hopped to her feet and headed out after Tony and Steve. "It goes badly," she said.

Jean and Sam quickly followed.

They didn't have to follow Kel for very long before they could follow the sound of the argument instead. It was, in fact, going badly.

"I've said it publicly, I've said it privately — 'Ultron: my fault' — see there? I said it again! Exactly how much sackcloth and ashes will it take before—"

"That's not my point at _all_ —"

"And it is for _exactly that reason_ that I supported the concept of oversight in the first place — a concept that you _violently_ rejected—"

"That's not true! I was planning to retire. Just because it hurt your feelings—"

"Really? So that response team in Bucharest that got the shit kicked out of them — my imagination?"

"They were going to kill Bucky!"

"He could have surrendered!"

"No, he _couldn't_ , and it's a little late now to pretend you care about—"

"No, I care that you put _all_ of us in danger when you jumped in and—"

" _I had no choice_!"

"Because unilateral decisions are only right when _you_ make them!"

At which point Sam and company burst onto the scene.

The shouting match had gotten to the red-faced, toe-to-toe stage, where neither one had devolved to shoving yet but the option was on the table. The three members of the backup crew slowed to a halt and adopted identical crossed-arm postures, and waited.

Whether it was the last statement or the audience, Sam wasn't sure, but Steve swallowed whatever retort he'd been about to make and looked away. Without the provocation of the staredown, Tony also took it down a couple notches, and backed off.

Kel approached Tony from the side, not blocking, not crowding. He silently held up a finger in her direction, and she stopped. (This had the air of something they'd done before.) Sam saw him take a couple of slow, deliberate breaths before he crossed the remaining distance himself and leaned a heavy hand on Kel's shoulder.

Sam in turn joined up with Steve, who was sinking deep into his emotionless supersoldier thing. Jean remained where she was.

Steve began, "Tony—"

"No," he said flatly, and took another breath. "Jean."

"Yes?"

"Can we agree to the simultaneous propositions that, _one_ , certain elements of our government make knee-jerk decisions out of fear, ignorance and general ass-hattery that do more harm than good; and _two_ , matters of global security should not be decided by any random person, however well-intentioned, who just happens to acquire an alien houseguest?"

She nodded slowly. "Yes. I can agree to that."

"You _really_ should have told someone about the back doors."

"This may mean little or nothing now," she said, "but once I'd returned — insofar as I'd made plans beyond the immediate crisis — I was going to look for a way to tell Iron Man. I conjectured that he might take the possibility seriously without requiring the sort of evidence I was unable to supply."

Tony looked entirely unimpressed.

"From here, I have to go home," Kel said. "I hoped I could come back to Earth after, but maybe it's safer for you if you close the fractures right away, or guard them. Everyone who belongs on Earth goes back together through the portal, and then it's over."

That one maybe got through a little. After a lengthy pause, he said, "I need to think about it."

Sam couldn't let that lie. " _You_ do?"

Tony shot him a glare, but amended, " _And_ we can discuss the options collectively at a later time."

Very mildly, and not all that accurately, Jean said, "It's getting late."

"Yeah," Tony said. "Whatever. Let's just…" He waved his free hand back in the direction they'd come.

Jean, Kel and Tony headed back together. Kel placed herself between the other two as a buffer. Tony's attitude toward Jean was still distinctly chilly, but the initial blaze of anger seemed to have died down.

Sam and Steve lingered in place. There were various things Sam could have said, like pointing out that Steve's conflict resolution skills were as sharp as ever, or suggesting that literally anyone else, up to and including a giant leopard, would have had a better chance of talking Tony down. Or, frankly, like calling Tony a jackass, because from where Sam was standing, the two of them were equally to blame for pushing each other's buttons.

Instead, he said, "The hike this week is gonna be a lot of fun, huh."

Steve grimaced. "Yeah."

 


	32. Chapter 32

The first night was given over to dreams of portals and falling and dead things. So that sucked shit.

On the first morning, the rain showed up and made itself at home, and wasn't _that_ just peachy. It did nothing to take Tony's mind off his anger, either. It just meant that he was angry, _and_ he had water running down the back of his neck.

Those who were wearing the pitifully inadequate camp uniform had to borrow foul weather gear from the late, unlamented Minotaurs. Some of the extra weight Peter had been carrying finally paid off in the form of oversized but water-resistant hooded jackets. Tony bundled up, feeling slightly ghoulish about the whole thing, and also a bit like a kid wearing his father's clothes (never a comfortable image). The rain still soaked him to the bone. It just took a little longer.

It rained and they walked, and he tried to sort things out.

Back when Natasha had done her piece of performance art — the whole 'secondary escape route' bit — Jean had as good as admitted that there was something she was holding back. And Tony hadn't pushed. Whatever gimmick she'd cooked up to keep herself and her people out of the public eye when they returned to Earth, he'd just assumed that it had nothing to do with him.

Sure as hell missed the mark on _that_ one.

One person on their own could _not_ make decisions that affected the security of the entire planet. See: Nick Fury, back in the day, building weapons with the Tesseract. See: Ultron, still on him and always would be. How many more times did it have to happen? How many near-catastrophes before one of them stuck? And here was some woman — Tony didn't even know her _last name_ , for fuck's sake — who had appointed herself the sole keeper of game-changing information about a previously unknown global vulnerability.

He wasn't just angry. He was _incandescent_.

When they made camp on the first evening, Rogers overrode standard procedure and ordered a campfire. Kel dug into one of the larger saddlebags and produced a green sphere about the size of a soccer ball. Upon suitable chemical prodding, it unfurled itself into the same sort of film that got stretched over the picnic tables during bad weather, back at the labor camp. Kel and Jean anchored the film to several trees surrounding their chosen rest stop, and it slowly filled in and ballooned upward.

They huddled together around the fire. Clothing of all kinds got propped up on sticks to dry. Privacy consisted of wrapping up in blankets and keeping one's eyes fixed on one's own little patch of dirt.

Dinner was a hurried and silent affair. Whatever provisions the Avengers had brought from Earth had long since run out, so they were all stuck with camp rations; i.e., mush. Assuming he lived long enough to taste real food again, Tony was certain that the moment he bit into something crunchier than a mashed potato, his teeth were going to fall out.

They sorted out overnight watches (it probably should have been his turn, but Rogers seemed reluctant to order him to do anything, which in a certain light was _hilarious_ ), after which everyone who hadn't been banished to the perimeter promptly turned in for the night. Tony stayed seated, staring into the fire and weighing the effort of unfurling his sleeping bag against the improbability of getting any sleep.

Then Kel appeared out of nowhere, plunked herself down beside him, and started rummaging through his backpack.

The act was so brazen it left him speechless for a moment. But as he continued to stare and it continued to happen, he pulled himself together and said, "Clearly no one's introduced you to the time-honored human custom of _not touching my stuff_."

Undeterred, she kept digging until she'd unearthed her prize: the little wooden box of sleep-aid leaves that he'd packed on a whim and not touched since.

"I didn't know if you brought them," she said.

Tony sometimes wondered if Kel had been genetically engineered specifically to make his life difficult. "You could have _asked_ ," he gritted.

"You don't like to talk about things. Even if you _want_ to talk about things, you want it to happen by accident. So—" she held up the box "—I accidentally found these. You could take one, if you want."

_Calumnies._ Tony scrubbed his face with both hands. He was exhausted and cold and aggressively rained-upon, and in no way equipped for this conversation.

"That entire intro you just did is hereby deleted from the record on the grounds of absurdity," he said. "And as to the content of your suggestion, have you been slogging through the same forest I have? Three times now, we've had to up and run in the middle of the night because some damned jellyfish caught our scent. How can I knock myself out?"

"If something like this happens tonight," she said, "I'll wake you."

Ah.

Subtlety, as previously established, wasn't Kel's thing. The message within the message was coming through loud and clear. And Tony had no idea how he wanted to respond.

Her expression grew more somber. "I understand if you blame me for the threat to your home," she said. "Everything you said was right. j'Brenithi conquer. We take what we want because we want it. I know this as well as anyone. I wanted to help. To do something better. But maybe I made it all worse."

Oddly, Tony wasn't sure what he was feeling towards Kel. His anger at Jean had drowned everything else out. Cautiously, he reached out a mental finger toward the hot lump of rage in his guts, and gave it a prod. Kel was dead center of this entire mess — that was undeniable. But as he examined what he knew of everyone's choices, he couldn't find fault with hers.

One thing he did know was that he never wanted to see her in a cage. Or worse. He didn't actually have a counter for that piece of Jean's argument: if Kel's presence on Earth were ever found out, she would be in danger. Her powers were too tempting a prize.

They were sitting very close together, and speaking in whispers. And it was okay. The quiet feeling of safety that Tony had come to associate with her was still there.

"I know I've said some things about your race that could be construed as impolite," he said, "but it was never about questioning your intentions. Or what you've done for us."

As miserable as the labor camp had been, he knew that it would have been much worse without Kel's tempering influence. (Influence she'd begun building up fully six months before the first prisoners had even arrived, thereby explaining her position of authority in the camp hierarchy, and he couldn't _believe_ he'd never worked all this out for himself.) She was the main reason that their captivity had been endurable, and that wasn't even getting into what she'd done for him personally.

"You did help," Tony told her. "I'll sign off on that. On a scale of helpful, you rank well above average. However the long-term consequences play out, I don't hold you responsible."

She scrunched in even closer and rested her head on his shoulder. The little box of leaves sat in her lap. "I'm glad, Tony," she said. "And I hope you still know that you can trust me."

He gave a quiet sigh. "You know, I was actually following the subtext just fine. It was already pretty blatant. You didn't need to render it into text."

She looked up at him, and her brow furrowed slightly. "What's subtext?"

He took the damned leaf.

The second day brought more walking and more rain. Walking. Rain. Tony was as sodden as a drowned rat. Mud insinuated itself into unspeakable places. Each step was more of a squish. He was never going to be warm or dry again for the rest of his miserable life.

(It was worth noting — because Tony did occasionally step outside of his own profound solipsism — that Nat was in good shape in spite of the weather. She'd been wrapped up in outerwear until only a pair of eyes remained, and Sam and Kel checked on her regularly. By all indications, she was healthy and on her way back to full strength.)

Jean was giving him space. It wasn't an icy sort of space, but it was a noticeable departure from recent days. They didn't eat together, and she didn't check in with him on breaks. Instead, she'd been sticking closer than usual to Peter, and… oh, that was right on the verge of being manipulative as _fuck_. Like she was implying that he wasn't doing his job, or she wanted to get the kid on her side, or…

But Tony gave himself a firm shake (and also did some eavesdropping), and managed to convince himself that that wasn't it. Jean was just… pinch-hitting while Tony's mental energy was directed elsewhere.

And this, too, turned out to be okay. He found — rather to his surprise — that he believed without question that she would never use the kid against him.

They were still on the same side.

It took a lot of rain and mud and silence to get there, but eventually he admitted to himself that he missed being friends.

The second evening was when Peter started sneezing. Poor kid — he hadn't signed up for this. Kel headed his way with, Tony hoped, some tissues. They set up a campfire and the overhead film again. It rained.

On the third morning, the rain finally began to taper off. The forest canopy managed to thin the downpour to more of a drizzle.

At the mid-morning break, Tony caught Jean's eye and gave a jerk of his chin. She nodded, and the two of them — yet again — moved further into the forest to have a private chat.

(He needed a name for these. Like… WOOD talks, to go along with SHED talks. Maybe. He'd work on it.)

Jean faced him at parade rest, as was her habit, and waited calmly. Her hood rested high on her forehead; beneath, her hair was bedraggled, her skin was damp from the rain and smudged with dirt, and she still looked more dignified than Tony could pull off most days.

Might as well dive right into it. "I disagree, in the strongest possible terms, with what you did," Tony said.

She gave a silent nod.

"However. I can also understand why, out of a limited number of bad options, it might have struck you as the least problematic."

"I can appreciate that your experience with the New York invasion gives you a perspective that I lack," she replied.

They spoke carefully and watched each other carefully, each braced for the misstep that would send them spinning out into another fight. But with that first exchange now spanning the distance between them like a safety line, Tony felt himself relax a little and saw her do the same.

"It started out as a relatively straightforward problem," Jean said, and let go of her tightly controlled posture. "The portals were going to take people, and I had to bring them back. But then it all started to get bigger. Contingencies and repercussions and risks. Decisions had to be made, and somehow I was the only one in the room, even though I probably shouldn't have been. I did have enough sense, on occasion, to be frightened by it all."

"But by then you were locked in," Tony said, feeling the echoes hit him from multiple directions. "And you figured, if you just worked hard enough and moved fast enough, you could still stay on top of it."

"That's a fair assessment."

"Yeah." Tony took a second to mop the rainwater off his face, however futile an exercise it was. "I, uh… can see how something like that could happen. And, when it comes to arrogance and presumption and casting stones and so forth, you've been pretty decent about not… I mean, if you look at my history, you could probably turn up one or two public remarks that could have served as fodder for a cheap shot, but—"

"Like the time that you stood in front of a Senate committee and claimed to have successfully privatized world peace?" Jean said, blinking innocently.

His lip twisted. "Exactly. You haven't mentioned that at all."

"Yes, that was rather decent of me."

They both gave a chuckle, and things moved another step closer to being all right.

"These fractures of yours," Tony said, more seriously. "We can't ignore them anymore. I've been saying it for years: we need to do more, on a global scale, to recognize and prepare for extraterrestrial threats."

"Granted," Jean said. "While not becoming so paranoid as to deprive ourselves of allies."

"Allies — do you mean Kel, or her race?"

She exhaled slowly. "I wish I knew what to hope for, but that one's above my paygrade."

"There's a first."

Jean's grin was brief and rueful. "I still want to go back with Kel," she said. "To meet more of her people and… speak and be spoken of, as she would put it. If there are interplanetary relations in our future, then this seems to me like a positive first step. However, I can also see how it might be more prudent simply to go our separate ways."

"As has been pointed out, I can't make the call either," Tony said. "You, me, the rest of them… we'll have to hash it out, come to a consensus."

"Yes. But perhaps not while standing in the rain."

" _Definitely_ not while standing in the rain." He shifted awkwardly from foot to foot. "So. At least until what I'm sure will be some contentious negotiations… I'm okay with being okay with each other again, if you are."

Jean smiled — one of the rare, full-face smiles that was more than just a momentary quirk of humor. "'Okay' sounds good to me," she said.

"Good. Okay." Tony hesitated. Because she was still standing there, and he was standing there, so… "Did you see this as a hugging sort of moment?"

"If you want to, that's—"

"No, I just meant, if _you_ wanted to—"

"I didn't have any particular expectations."

"Oh, no, yeah, me neither. I just figured I'd check if—"

At which point she crossed the three steps between them and wrapped her arms around his shoulders and… well, what with the wet and muddy clothing and almost two weeks without shower facilities, it wasn't a _long_ embrace. But it felt right, all the same.

"I hope you know that I didn't discuss our disagreement with Peter in any capacity," Jean said once they'd split apart again. "I would never try to subvert your relationship with him."

"Yeah, I did end up knowing that, actually," Tony said. "And I hope you know that there's a tree behind you that just sneezed."

"Yes, I noticed."

They both waited. The tree sneezed again, embarrassedly. Eventually, it dropped a sniffly Spider-Man into their midst.

Tony faced him with folded arms. "This eavesdropping bit? Not a good look on you."

"Well, when nobody tells me anything—"

"No," he said, and carefully didn't look at Jean. "Try again."

The kid sighed and looked down. "Sorry."

"Better. I'd be even happier if it showed signs of stopping. Not everything we discuss is your business."

The breath the kid took in looked more like the prelude to an argument than a concession, but instead it turned into a sneezing fit.

"How did you dig up a rhinovirus, anyway?" Tony asked when he could get a word in edgewise. "This isn't the right universe for it."

"Kel says it's more like an allergy thing," Peter said, and sneezed twice more. "The rain shakes loose a bunch of pollen from the trees or whatever, and it's all floating in the air now, and I guess it bothers me more than the rest of you." Another sneeze; aggressive use of a tissue. "But I'm fine." He stuck the tissue back in his pocket, then scuffed the ground with his foot and failed in every way to look casual. "So… you're not fighting anymore. The argument's over. Right?"

"I suspect the disagreement will be an ongoing matter," Jean said. "But I'd like to think that the ire has subsided. Tony?"

"Yes, we've downgraded from ire to… what would you say, irritation?"

"Disgruntlement?" Jean suggested.

"Pique," Tony countered.

Peter gave a satisfied nod like he was personally taking credit. "Good," he said. "Now you just have to make up with Captain America, and everything will be fine."

"Okay, and I appointed you my social director _when_ , exactly?"

"I'm just _saying_."

Jean, who was amused and not doing a damned thing to hide it, said, "Let's head back."

 

* * *

 

The fifth day was a rest day, as had become their habit. The previous evening's hike had come to an end when a sudden rise of rock had interrupted the landscape. Whether they climbed it or circumnavigated it remained to be seen, and either option was likely to prove annoying. For the moment, however, the slight overhang provided some protection from the ongoing drizzle, and they made camp beneath it.

After breakfast, Jean sat down beside him and said, "I know what day it is."

"Yeah, I know," Tony replied. "You do the day count under your breath every evening."

"I'm sure you're aware that I mean, specifically—"

"Yeah." He braced himself for the inevitable _are you all right_ , but it wasn't forthcoming. "It's meaningless anyway," he said, to fill the silence. "No intrinsic significance, just a quirk of astronomy — and besides, the day count here doesn't actually prove anything unless we also establish that this planet's days are precisely the same length as the days back home, and I'm not convinced that—"

"Tony."

He sighed. "So it's been a year. You throwing me a party?"

"No. I'm just here."

There was nothing he could say. But it was nice of her to stick around while he didn't say it.

 

* * *

 

Steve would never wish for greater dangers to befall his team, but he did regret the unfairness of it all. Jean had gotten giant leopards, unexpected scorpions, and territorial spider crabs. He got rain.

Admittedly, it was quite a lot of rain. Even after the heavy downpour eased off, an ongoing drizzle persisted until the dampness and chill had soaked into their bones. Mindful of Natasha's recovery, Steve kept to a very mild pace.

The rain put a damper on nonessential conversation. As they hiked in silence, Steve guessed that everyone was mulling over the new information they'd received, just like he was.

The most attention-grabbing of the revelations had to be the existence of a permanent bridge back to their home galaxy. But, in a practical sense, it changed nothing. Technically, Kel and Jean — and maybe even the whole team — could leave whenever they liked. Escape the upcoming war and make their way back home.

Leaving the civilian population behind to die.

Steve was sure that not a single one of them would bring it up, even for the sole purpose of shooting it down. It was out of the question. They had a job to do, and that was that. Their new options would only begin to matter afterward, once the camp was safe and they were ready to go home.

He didn't want to downplay the hazards of going back with Kel. Just the fact that it would require a solid month of travel on this planet was obvious cause for concern. Added to that were Kel's descriptions of her people's culture, which had an undeniable thread of aggression to them. Steve wanted to believe that sapient beings could find grounds for mutual respect… but he wasn't so naive as to wager his team's lives on it without a lot more information.

If it worked, though — if the risks could be controlled — then returning to Earth via her planet would circumvent all the problems that awaited them back home. They could slip in quietly and… well, go back into exile. (To what ultimate end, Steve had no idea.)

However, this plan only worked if Tony and Vision agreed to keep quiet about the back door until they returned. It was not at all clear whether Tony could be persuaded — or for that matter, whether Vision could be persuaded, since this would go well beyond his original noninterference agreement. And, critically, they all needed assurances that the delay would not put Earth in danger.

There were a lot of challenging conversations ahead.

But first they had to win a war. Reluctantly, Steve shut down one line of thought and refocused on another.

The last two weeks had not been wasted. They'd gained useful information on terrain, travel times, and potential hazards. It was reasonably clear now where the enemy army would try to cross the river. The defense force would be able to make good use of mines, once they had some. Steve also wanted to explore the possibility of using the two major threats they'd encountered — the kethysh and the carnivorous moss — against the enemy. It was about time that someone else bore the brunt of this planet's hostility.

Yes, in spite of the loss of the horse, which was unfortunate but not debilitating, the trip had been worth the effort.

Steve was also pleased with the team's performance. (Excepting his own, of course, since he'd given no performance to speak of.) Wanda had less field experience than the rest of them, but she'd kept up on the march with no difficulty, and she'd shown good control over her powers in a variety of situations. Sam, Clint and Natasha were old hands at this; no concerns there. Kel was… Kel, and Steve couldn't claim to have figured her out completely, but at least he had a much better understanding of her capabilities. Jean had kept her head under strenuous circumstances, and overall had made reasonable command decisions.

Which brought him to the Tony problem. Steve knew that Tony had valid grievances. They both did. Sooner or later, they would have to talk them through. Steve was willing to try. But Tony was still freezing him out.

(This stood in vivid contrast to the situation between Tony and Jean. Tony had spent one day visibly fuming, the next in isolated silence, then the two of them had gone off for a conversation and come back as allies again. Certainly Steve had never caught that particular break.)

It was the team's accustomed rest day. Jean and Tony had spent the morning together, though they'd barely said two words to each other from what Steve had seen. Kel had taken Spider-Man out on patrol, and they returned around lunchtime. When Tony shifted his attention to the boy, Steve saw an opportunity.

He approached Jean and said, "I was wondering if you'd like to take a walk."

"Of course," she replied, and picked up her spear and joined him.

While the air was still heavy with moisture, it wasn't raining right then so much as misting. They walked a short distance south, moving cautiously at times where the mud made footing treacherous, until they reached a small outcropping of rock that Steve remembered from the previous evening, that made a respectable bench.

"I'd wondered when you would take your turn," Jean said once they were seated.

"My turn?"

"To voice your displeasure with my decisions," she said. "Tony rather stole the spotlight. I don't blame you for waiting a few days."

"Is that what you think this is?" Steve asked.

"That or my performance review, which amounts to the same thing."

He shook his head. "I know we've had our disagreements, but I'm not here to be antagonistic. You had your reasons for doing what you did. There are just a few things that I'd like to understand better."

"Such as?"

"You never tried to contact the Avengers," Steve said. "If your operation had started after Leipzig, I could understand why. But you were planning this for years."

"To the best of my knowledge, the Avengers never had a public hotline."

"Somehow I don't think a person as resourceful as yourself would have seen that as an insurmountable obstacle."

Jean nodded acknowledgment. "All right. For reasons relating to Kel that I've already explained, I believed that this situation needed to be handled quietly. The Avengers have a certain reputation for loudness. Moreover, once SHIELD fell and you became essentially a private organization, it seemed to me that the Accords or something like them were only a matter of time. Your involvement would have drawn scrutiny that I wanted to avoid."

At first glance, it was a reasonable answer, and it was more or less what Steve had been expecting. But it wasn't the real answer. "A few of us do have a passing familiarity with covert ops," he said. "You didn't trust us."

There was a long pause. "No," Jean said. "The ties with SHIELD were too strong, and I distrusted them long before the DC incident." She paused again, and her jaw tightened. Steve could see traces of an intense internal debate. "I suppose," she added, "if one were to accuse me of wanting to prove that I and mine could handle the matter just as well as you and yours, I'm not sure I could refute the point."

As someone who'd spent most of his life feeling like he had something to prove, Steve could hear the ring of truth to her admission. "If we'd stayed out of your way, you probably could have," he said. "Of course, if we'd _known_ to stay out of your way…"

"Yes, I do see the problem."

Steve leaned back against the rock and looked up at the sky. Scents of damp rock and recent rain surrounded them. A little patch of sunlight was trying to make an appearance. They were close enough to the edge of the ravine that the sound of rushing water was just barely audible in the background. When nothing was trying to kill them, this was actually a pretty nice place.

Several weeks before, when he'd been just barely mobile and still feeling hopelessly buried in despair over everything he'd lost, Jean had walked with him and spoken in support of the things he'd done to protect Bucky. _I would have done the same_ , she'd said. Turned out those words were a lot less theoretical than Steve had assumed.

"I can't exactly blame you for trusting in your team," Steve told her. "Or for wanting to protect your friend. I would have done the same."

Jean looked at him quickly.

"At least you had time to make plans," he continued. "I jumped in after all of two days, because I believed that we were needed." He offered her a slight smile. "And maybe I wanted to prove that my people deserve better than exile. That we still have something to contribute."

"Having met you all now," Jean said, "I believe that you do."

"You still want to run the war, though, don't you."

"It _is_ my camp."

"We'll see."

She gave her tiny quirk of a smile, and leaned back to match his posture. "No one's yelling at me today," she said. "I'm feeling rather good about my communication skills. Is there anything else you want to know?"

Steve shook his head. "I think I understand the events. Although there's one… and you don't have to answer this, of course, but I've been wondering how you did it."

"Did what?"

There were so many ways he could phrase the question, but really, one word summed it up. Steve spread his hands and said, "Tony."

Jean hesitated. "Before this becomes a series of comical misunderstandings, I'm going to ask you to clarify."

_He listens to you. He respects you. He got in a fight with you, and you got it to stop._ "The two of you seem to have a solid working relationship," Steve said instead. "I guess I'm looking for pointers."

"Steve, I beg you, don't drag me into the Germany problem."

"No, of course, that's…" He looked away, feeling sheepish. "You're right. It's not your problem. It's just… something between the two of us never worked. And now I'm worried that it's too late to fix it."

"I'm not comfortable discussing Tony behind his back," Jean said, which Steve couldn't fault her for. "So let me instead discuss myself. My reflex is to match strength with strength. If pushed, I push back." She glanced at him sidelong. "Perhaps you're familiar with the phenomenon."

"It rings a bell."

"There are conflicts I've won and loyalty I've earned that way, and by no means do I want to downplay those things," she said. "But there's a vast difference between being trusted for my strength, and being _trusted_. The latter takes more than being strong, and more than being right. And," she added pointedly, "it can't be rushed."

Steve gave a sigh and leaned his head back. In other words: back off, be patient, give it time. Not his strong suits, historically speaking.

"Yeah," he said. "That's… I don't like it, so you're probably right."

The walk back to the campsite was comfortable and unhurried. When they arrived, they discovered a heated argument in progress.

"There's no way!" Peter said. "Look, I get that you're scary awesome with a sword and everything, but you'd never get that close to me. I could stop you from way over here."

"You could try, but it wouldn't work," Kel returned placidly.

"How could it not work? That doesn't even make sense! Mr. Stark, who do you think would win?"

"Nope," Tony said. He was seated at the base of the rock ledge that had stopped their forward progress, whittling at some sort of football-shaped wooden construction. "Not doing this. Leave me entirely out of it."

"Well, it _would_ work, and if you really need me to prove it to you…"

Kel managed to convey with a shrug that _he_ wouldn't be the one proving anything.

On the other side of the campsite, Nat, Clint, Sam and Wanda were clustered together, watching the proceedings with fascination. If they'd been on the correct planet for popcorn, Steve was quite sure there would have been a bowl of it sitting between them.

Jean, accurately, zeroed in on Natasha and asked, "Why?"

"Because Clint was bored, and we're out of secrets."

"Hey, Jean!" Spider-Man called. "You know that I would win in a fight against Kel, right? Like, if we had to fight for whatever reason. It would be me, right?"

Jean studied him impassively for a long moment. "I could remark upon unnecessary waste of finite resources in the form of your webbing," she said. "I could label this one-upmanship as juvenile and counterproductive. But since none of that is going to change the outcome, I will say instead that when this goes badly, don't come crying to me."

Then she crossed her legs and sank to the ground right where she'd stood, and covered her eyes with one hand.

Rebuffed but undaunted, Peter turned back to Kel, who arched her eyebrows expectantly. Her sword was sitting on the ground a short distance away. Steve knew that she also carried a startling number of knives, and he hoped to hell that she had the good sense not to use them.

Peter shrugged and said, "Look, I'm sorry to have to do this, but—"

One of his hands came up and a web shot out.

Just as swiftly, Kel shifted sideways and brought up her right forearm to block. The web latched onto her skin, of course — and immediately snapped back. Kel did not go with it.

" _Aaaughhh_!" Peter hollered when… _something_ hit him in the face.

"He sounds like he walked into a spiderweb," Sam said, and the peanut gallery busted up laughing.

Kel's forearm was bright red. At first glance, it looked like she'd wrapped a crimson scarf around it, although it would be more accurate to say that she'd done exactly the opposite thing.

"A good trick," Kel said. "Not a new one, though."

"That was your _skin_!" Peter shrieked once he'd wiped it off the front of his mask. "What is _wrong_ with you?"

Replacement epidermis was already creeping out to cover the raw patch. "I said it wouldn't work," Kel told him.

"That's _disgusting_! So, like, pieces of you just _come off_?"

"If I need them to."

"Does it hurt?"

"You tore off a large piece of my skin," Kel said. "Yes, of course it hurt."

His eyes went wide. "Oh crap, I'm really sorry!"

"This is the difference," she explained patiently. "I can agree to take damage, much more than you can agree to cause it. So I know I'll win."

"Okay, but…" Peter was stuck and he knew it. He floundered around until he came up with, "But I'm still a lot stronger than you. I don't need my webs, I can just… I can just…" His fists came up like he'd been to a boxing match once and, self-consciously, he started to advance on her.

Kel remained where she stood, watching with polite interest.

He got within range of her, and leaned in and stage-whispered, "You're supposed to fight back!"

"Ah. Yes."

She threw a lazy jab. Spider-Man snatched her wrist easily, of course… and promptly folded up and hit the ground, out cold.

"Damn," Sam muttered.

Steve reflexively jolted forward a few steps. Tony came to his feet, his jaw hanging open. Jean tentatively uncovered her eyes.

"I am executing a tremendous leap of faith by not freaking out," Tony said to Kel. "Fix that, please. _Now_."

Kel knelt by Peter and slid two fingers through one of the eyeholes of his mask to touch his temple. (Steve still remembered — quite vividly — the first time she'd done that to him.)

She pulled back again. After a second's pause, Peter gasped and sat up quickly, and just as quickly groaned and put a hand to his head.

"It will wear off soon," Kel said.

"What the hell…"

"You forgot about the skin thing," Sam told him.

"I thought that was just your hands," Peter said, then quickly flinched. "Um. Your hand. Sorry. Like, your palm?"

He held his palm out to demonstrate, and Kel briskly turned it backward. "Rude to show an open hand," she said. "And no, our powers work everywhere." She helped him to his feet, and he took a second to catch his balance.

"Okay," he said again, and Steve had to admire his persistence. "Okay, but if I'd had my suit—"

"Then I would have needed a knife, and Tony would be even more angry with me now," Kel said. "Everything that ever tried to kill me, or that I was sent to kill, was some combination of bigger, stronger, faster. I'm here, they're not." She stepped away from him and reaffixed her sword to her belt. "Also," she added over her shoulder, "you have no technique at _all_."

"She's not wrong, kid," Steve said. "Strength and speed only go so far if you don't know how to use them."

"I did okay against you," Peter retorted.

"I was trying not to hurt you. But there's a broader point to be made: if we're the army, we should start training together. All of us," he added, looking at Jean.

"Oh good," Clint said. "What with the eight-hour shifts in the mine and everything, I was worried about going soft."

"Well, I did go soft," said Steve. "I've still got a long way to go, and a lot of muscle memory to update, before I can be of any use to you. And I'll bet we could all stand to brush up on our swordwork."

The protest hadn't been serious. Steve scanned his team, and found agreement.

Now for the tough one. "Tony?"

Tony's lips were pressed together in annoyance, like he'd been looking for an objection and was upset that he couldn't find one. "Fine," he said. "The kid wants to play, that's up to him. Just remember that he's not one of your soldiers and you won't be bringing him to the front lines."

"No, I meant… _all_ of us, together. You too."

This earned an eyeroll. "Well gee, I'll have to check my calendar, but I'm pretty sure I'll be too busy building mines, forging swords, designing catapults, and otherwise manufacturing the entirety of our arsenal."

"But Mr. Stark, don't you already do fight training with Kel and Jean?" Peter asked.

Tony shot him a glare.

"Speaking of abrupt topic changes," Jean said, "we spent six days walking south, but of course the uphill leg is taking longer. What do we think — another three days to the bridge?"

"Close to this," Kel said. "I guess that we get there early on the fourth day."

"Which would give us an additional four days until the next supply delivery. Wanda, obviously you'll take that time to recuperate. Do you anticipate any problems?"

"No, Alisha and I are getting more efficient at the process," she replied. "Creating illusions is a lot easier than forming shields or moving things."

"Good."

Kel then looked over her shoulder, into the forest. "Tony, if you want to test the thing you made to kill jellyfish, I just found one," she said.

Steve watched them go.

_Leave it alone. Leave it alone leave it alone leave it—_

"I'm going to see what they've got," he said.

Sam may or may not have muttered, "Oh, _Lord_ ," under his breath. Steve ignored him.

(There _had_ to be a way to start fixing things. Didn't there? There had to be.)

The jellyfish Kel had found was about a ten-minute hike from the campsite. In daylight, it wasn't all that subtle. The strands were practically invisible, but the body of the thing was a mass of what looked like ivy, bundled together on the lowest limb of a tree in a way that creeping vines wouldn't naturally do. Kel and Tony stopped a cautious distance away, and crouched at the base of a different tree. Tony's wooden football was in his hands. Steve could see now that it had been carved with irregular grooves, and there was a small moveable piece like a switch near one end.

Tony glanced at Steve for a second, and just as quickly dismissed him. "Heat or motion, right?" he said to Kel.

"Yes," she said. "If it rolls, it should be picked up."

"Here goes, then." Tony flicked the little switch, then crept forward a few paces and sent the football rolling toward the faint shimmers of light that signalled the creature's strands.

With a sudden _twang_ , the ball shot up into the air and vanished into the mass of ivy. Steve could just make out the cracking noises as the wood shattered.

Then: a muffled bang, like someone had swaddled a thunderstorm in a blanket. The jellyfish gave a sharp jerk, and a slimy green fluid began to rain down, along with smells of blood and meat at every imaginable stage of decay. Tony backpedalled quickly, one hand over his mouth and nose. Not long after, the rest of the body loosed its hold on the branch and hit the ground with a soggy sort of _whump_.

"I assume that's dead enough, right?" Tony said to Kel. "The thing's adequately dead?"

"It dies, yes," she told him.

"Lovely." He was still covering his nose. "I'm thrilled we were able to share in this experience."

"Nice work," Steve said.

This earned him another half-second's worth of eye contact before Tony looked away again. "Jean supplied the gunpowder," he said. "I just had to design the casing, calibrate the yield. Experience the smell. Can we leave now?"

They left the area at a brisk walk. Tony conspicuously kept Kel between himself and Steve. Steve accepted the message and the silence until they were no longer close enough to the jellyfish to smell its innards. Then, as nonconfrontationally as he could manage, he accelerated out in front of the other two and drew them all to a halt.

(It couldn't be pushed. It couldn't be forced. Fine. But it also couldn't be fixed by doing _nothing_. Someone had to make the first move.)

"Tony," Steve said, "is there any way that we can have a conversation?"

He was met, as always, with a look of anger. "What part of 'I'm not ready to do this' was unclear to you?" Tony retorted.

"That was a month ago."

"Well, forgive me for not processing _my parents' murders_ as quickly as you'd prefer."

Steve looked to the side. Kel was only a few steps away, watching both of them carefully.

"Kel, could you give us a minute, please?" he asked.

"No," Tony countered. "She knows the whole story. I told her everything." He crossed his arms. "Say what's on your mind."

Now _that_  startled him. Steve had to force himself to stop gaping at Kel and refocus on Tony. "I just…"

"Actually, hold up," Tony said. "I've been down this road once or twice before. Kel, what is the current tally of fifteen-year-olds in trees?"

"Spider-Man is at the campsite with everyone else," she replied. "We're alone."

"Fine." He turned back to Steve. "Go."

Steve hadn't actually rehearsed this part. "I know it's going to take time to rebuild trust," he said, feeling his way cautiously. "I just wanted you to know that I'm willing to work on it. Whatever it takes. I hope one day, you will be, too."

Tony's lips curled up, but even if it was technically a smile, there wasn't a shred of good humor in it. "See, I love this. I love how you set yourself up as the reasonable one. The principled one. Like I'm over here in a corner having some kind of tantrum and you're magnanimous enough to wait it out. But the truth is, it was never about principle, it was about _him_. You _knew_ what he'd done and you still—"

"That's _not_ —" Steve forced himself to stop, and redoubled his grip on his temper. "Look — take Bucky out of it for a minute."

Tony got an ugly look in his eyes and said, "Tried that."

And Steve absolutely was _not_ going to let that slide, but almost before he could draw a breath to retort, Kel stretched her arm out between them and softly said, "Tony."

Tony apparently saw something in her face that he didn't want to argue with. He averted his eyes and took a step backward, and muttered, "Retracted."

Steve had to take a slow breath, and then another one, before he could speak without snapping. (It took more than being right.) "If it had been any other enhanced," he said, "it still should have been us bringing him in. That was a kill squad they sent out in Bucharest. The situation had no chance of ending well. And _that_ is the principle I was concerned about: if we hand over control to an organization with an agenda, then they can keep us away from where we need to be."

"So your ideal solution is a US-based, privately funded paramilitary organization that does wherever it likes and answers to no one?" Tony said. "Really? Have you tried saying that out loud to yourself a couple times? Because it's _insane_!"

" _Your_ ideal solution is to sign a five-hundred-page contract presented with twenty-four hours' notice that leaves us helpless in the face of men like Thaddeus Ross?"

"It was never about ideal, it was about surviving until tomorrow!"

"But you never once so much as asked us—"

"You think I drafted the fucking thing? Ross ambushed me a couple hours before he did the rest of you."

Now Steve was the one who made himself look away. They weren't… the point was to move past the argument, not rehash it. But he still didn't understand how Tony couldn't _see_ this. _They knock you down, you get back up again. You don't negotiate supervised knocking-down rights_.

"We sign," Tony said. "We prove that we can be trusted, build up some goodwill with the UN, in the public eye, and _then_ we get enough leverage to renegotiate the terms. It would've— if you'd just—"

"I never wanted to get in your way," Steve said. "I was going to retire."

"Until _he_ showed up. After that, not a damned thing mattered."

"That's not—" But Tony's look of bitter fury made him stop.

"Can I say something?" Kel asked, and both of them jumped.

"What?" Tony said curtly.

Kel drew her sword, and used it to point to a tree behind them. "The animal that Natasha calls a chimpanzee and that Sam doesn't want to call a chimpanzee hunts us, and since you didn't bring weapons, you should move away so I can kill it."

That was a very good reason, as reasons for interruptions went. Steve and Tony double-timed it to a safe distance. Kel paused beneath the tree in question, and just a few seconds later, a massive dark shape plunged out of the branches above her.

She dodged and slashed with her sword, and the creature landed on its back, a visible gouge in its carapace. It righted itself quickly and attacked again, and a sharp click-clacking started up as Kel fended off its claws with her blade.

Steve hadn't seen this one before. It had a higher ratio of spider to crab than the spider crabs had. Heavy foreclaws, many eyes, many legs, and two dripping fangs. He kept himself in front of Tony and scavenged a sturdy branch from the ground, for what little good it might do.

"You, ah, need any help, there?" Tony called.

"No, it's fine," Kel said. A sharp downward cut from her sword took off the bottom half of one of the thing's claws, then a stab destroyed two of its eyes.

"How did Nat get 'chimpanzee' out of this?"

Steve sighed. "She tried to explain it to me once… it has something to do with primates on Earth being like arachnids here."

"The woman is a menace."

The fight was almost over. The beast was bleeding (or leaking, anyway — Steve wasn't sure what), and it had lost a few legs. Kel dodged a claw, saw her opening, and thrust her sword full length between the creature's fangs and up into its brain. She pulled back again, and the monster was dead.

"There," she said. "Sorry. You can talk again."

A giant spider was a hard act to follow. Steve scrambled to recover his train of thought.

Tony beat him to it. "One thing I've been curious about," he said. "When did you decide not to kill me?"

The words registered individually, but the content made no sense. "What?"

"Shield," Tony snapped. "Face. Chopping in half. At what point in the downswing did that stop being the plan?"

Shock jolted Steve a step backward. Frigid horror punched through his guts. "My God…" he breathed. "I had to disable the _suit_ , Tony. I was never… did you actually think I'd—"

"Yeah," Tony said, mostly to the ground at his feet. "That moment, I believed it."

There was only one reply he could make. "If I hadn't stopped you, would you have killed him?"

"Opinions vary," Tony said, and Steve wasn't sure what to make of his tone. "I'm not sure."

"That moment, I believed it."

Tony gave a sharp nod. "Well, I think that about covers everything. Good chat. Let's never do this again."

_Dammit_. "Tony—"

"What do you _want_?" he spat. "My forgiveness? Can't have it. What else?"

"So that's it? We're just done?"

"I'm sorry — when did we ever _start_?"

Steve shook his head. "No, that's not fair. We were—"

"Don't you _dare_ say we were friends." Tony paced away, toward Kel where she stood with the bloody sword still in her hand. "I look at you, I see him," he said quietly. "I see him killing my mother. And I can't…"

Kel jabbed the point of her sword into the dirt, and reached up to clasp his arm. "Enough for today," she said. She leaned in further and whispered something in Tony's ear, inaudible to Steve, then took a few careful steps past him. "It wasn't bad, what you did," she said to Steve. "Things that needed to be spoken were spoken. The next time you talk — and there will be one, because neither of you can leave a problem — it will be a little easier. But it's enough for today. You can find the way back, yes?"

_There might not be a way back_. "Of course," he said. His voice was gruff; his throat seemed to have shrunk to half its size.

"We'll come later."

There was nothing, absolutely nothing Steve could do except turn and walk away, carrying the weight of his failures with him.

 


	33. Chapter 33

Tony never thought he'd be happy to see the labor camp again, but after eighteen days of roughing it, any location with access to four walls and a ceiling was functionally equivalent to heaven.

The first stop for everyone was the showers, which Tony agreed was an excellent choice. It turned into a bit of an ambush, though, because none of them were allowed to leave until they'd gone through Kel or Aaron for treatment of scrapes and blisters (fine), and to be checked for parasites (ugh). However. Once that was over with (and once he'd stuck around long enough to ensure that the kid actually got checked out and didn't made a break for it through the skylight), Tony aimed himself like a missile at his dorm, targeted his cot, and collapsed.

And the universe — this one or any other — could goddamned deal with it.

 

* * *

 

In the midst of Steve's many failures came one tiny success: he finally cajoled Kel into taking her cabin back.

"I'm grateful for the gesture," he told her. "Truly. But I'm doing a lot better than I was before, and I think it would help me now to be with the rest of the team."

She gave in, and showed him where to get a fresh set of bed linens. The last of the barracks buildings had a few empty cots left. Steve claimed one and laid his aching body down. Though he was exhausted, sleep was a long time coming.

 

* * *

 

Natasha made a wager with herself on whether Jean would follow her own instructions and take the afternoon off. She won.

As soon as everyone had been cleared by the medical staff, Jean took a meeting in her office with Vision and the team of three that she'd left in charge of the camp. Natasha's invitation had unaccountably gotten lost in the mail, but she put in an appearance anyway. She knew the admin team, because she made a point of knowing everyone: Tavleen, a woman about ten years older than Jean, who worked in processing; Anne, of the camp maintenance crew, younger but steady and well respected; and Sadiq, who represented the mining crews and also the Champaign crowd.

Jean glanced in Natasha's direction as she took a seat at her desk, but chose not to make a fuss. "How did you fare while we were gone?" she asked.

Vision stayed in the background while the other three gave reports: ore and lumber production, inventory requisitions, personnel transferred to the beta site, minor disputes arisen and resolved. By all accounts, the past eighteen days had been quite routine.

"Thank you all," Jean said after the briefings had run their course. "It sounds like you had everything well in hand. Our mission yielded a great deal of useful information. I'll update everyone at dinner. Immediately following the upcoming supply delivery, I plan to spend a few days at the beta site. If there's anything in particular that needs addressing between now and then, please let me know."

"It's not hard to continue the routine," Anne said (in sign as well as speech, like all of them had been doing). "But…" She looked from side to side at her fellow residents. "We're all a little nervous about what will happen when the deception ends. It won't be much longer now, right? Are you sure you can keep everyone safe?"

Jean gave a faint smile that, Natasha knew, had to be very carefully calculated: casual enough to instill confidence, but not so much as to trivialize the problem. "After eighteen days in close proximity with Avengers, I can confirm that they are in fact Avengers," she said. "I won't pretend to you that the remaining months will be easy — obviously that would be foolish. But every one of us knows what we have to do. We're making preparations, and I'm confident that we'll be ready."

"But if there's an army coming…"

"Loki had an army. Ultron had an army. They fell, just like the Nyth will fall." She leaned forward, and Natasha watched her adjust her body language from confident to confidential. "We'll get as much mileage as we can out of traps and long-distance weapons, but the truth is, sooner or later, the nine of us will have to form a line and say to anyone on the other side of it, 'You go no further'. Can I claim to be unafraid? Of course not. But when the time comes, we will form that line and we will hold it, because that's what we promised to do. And I can't think of a group of people I'd rather have at my side."

Natasha and Vision got quick, furtive glances.

"After this delivery, it's seventy-five more days, right?" Navleen asked.

"That's the hope, yes," Jean said.

"We'll get you there."

"I know you will."

The three of them filed out, and Vision took their place.

"For my part," he said, "I can report no unusual animal activity, nor unexpected attention from our neighbors. Since your departure, I have made daily trips to the beta site. They also have not experienced any unforeseen hazards. The construction and agricultural efforts proceed at the expected rate. The safe travel corridor now covers approximately sixty percent of the route, and I anticipate its completion within the month. I have also extended the topographic maps of the region to a twenty-mile radius." He gestured to a stack of papers on the corner of her desk.

"Thank you, that is excellent on all counts," Jean replied. "We encountered something in the forest that I wanted to mention to you: a type of moss."

"To date, I have catalogued twenty different plant species bearing various degrees of resemblance to terrestrial moss."

"This one would stand out," Jean said. "It's a particularly dark shade of green, it can grow at a rate visible to the human eye, and it eats people."

Vision was taken aback. "Nothing I have encountered matches that description," he said.

"I'm glad," said Jean. "It's a problem, and one for which I don't have a good solution yet. If you see anything of the sort — even absent the predatory behavior, the color is quite distinctive — please let me know, and also I would appreciate it if you could pass the warning on to the beta site. I'm sure you'll be there much sooner than I will."

"In fact, I can depart now and return within two hours."

Jean was learning to cover it when Vision's powers took her by surprise. Natasha barely saw the blink. "Yes, please do, if you wouldn't mind. And while you're there, please let Mark and Matt know that I'll be making the trip myself within the week."

"Certainly."

"Thank you."

"Ms. Romanoff," Vision said politely as he passed her.

"Vision."

At last, Natasha took her turn to step up and seek audience.

"Natasha," Jean said, and folded her hands on her desk. "Is there something you need?"

"Moderately, and not as much as you do," she replied. "Rest."

"An amusing side effect of time spent in a labor camp: one becomes accustomed to labor."

Natasha smiled for the precise fraction of a second that the quip deserved, then shifted some stacks of paper so that she could seat herself on the edge of the desk. "So what did you think of it? Fieldwork," she clarified at Jean's slightly arched eyebrows.

She waited while Jean scanned her face for traps.

"More intense than I'd expected," Jean admitted after a pause. "When Kel and I were making our plans, we knew that some form of combat was inevitable. At the time, I had training but relatively little experience. She taught me what it was like to fight for my life. Mortal peril is something she's rather good at simulating."

Natasha nodded.

"She's tried to tell me more than once that I still haven't experienced a battlefield," Jean continued. "In retrospect, I don't think I believed her. Not really. This might be the first time I understood just much worse things are going to get."

Not bad. A clear-headed assessment, overall. The line between confidence and overconfidence could be treacherous, but Jean generally kept to the correct side of it.

"So are you ready to admit that Steve should take command?"

The blow landed; Jean absorbed it, shored up her defenses, and fired back.

"On the contrary," she said stiffly. "I have every respect for Steve's experience — and the same goes for all of you — but I am still responsible for this camp, and I cannot and will not abdicate that responsibility over something so petty as personal discomfort."

Natasha let the corners of her lips curl up. "Just checking," she said. "The jaguar incident was unfortunate and outside your control. Don't let it make you overly cautious."

Jean was still stung, of course. "Interesting," she said after a moment. "And yet, if it came down to it, I doubt very much that you would take my side over his."

"If the two of you screw this up to the point that we're splitting off into sides, then I'm overthrowing the both of you and taking command myself," Natasha retorted. "Both of your contributions are important. Make it work."

"Well. I shall consider myself warned." She took a breath, and Natasha saw the conscious choice to set aside her annoyance. "Speaking of the leopard incident, if you're interested, I'm sure that Aaron can remove the scars."

"Yeah, we had a chat about that," Natasha said. "I'll get around to it." The upper one, at least, had to go. For professional reasons, she needed to be able to wear a low-cut top and not attract attention (or, at least, not that kind of attention). The lower one made an interesting addition to the collection, and she didn't altogether mind it. "Have you had your back done yet?"

"I'll get around to it," Jean said, then shook her head and scoffed. "'Over ten months ago.' I can't believe _that's_ what undid me."

"Actually, all I would have had to do was ask the Oregon Six how they managed before they had a medic," Natasha said. "But I didn't want to step on whatever cover story you've been using."

"I appreciate that," Jean replied. "The precise details of how I met my co-conspirator have not been a high priority for most. It is generally known that Kel was on Earth at some unspecified prior time. Of course the Mt. Hood and Denver people all know that she arrived in camp before I did. To those few who asked, I said that she came via an earlier portal that hit a different planet." It was her turn to offer a fraction of a smile. "If your team didn't need to share my escape route, I likely would have given you the same story."

Setting aside the question of whether Jean could have lied to her face and gotten away with it (answer: no), Natasha couldn't find much to critique. The best lies hewed as closely as possible to the truth; replace 'portal' with 'bridge', and her description was technically accurate.

"I'll see that the rest of the team sticks to your version," she said. "I agree that dangling a path home in front of everyone and forbidding them to take it would burn more political capital than you've got to spare."

Jean nodded. "Thank you."

This hadn't been on her agenda, but Natasha decided to take a moment to indulge her curiosity. "If we do end up visiting Kel's planet, I've been wondering: do her people look like us? Obviously she does, but I don't know how much her mixed genetics have to do with it."

"No, they don't," Jean said. "They're humanoid, but visibly non-human."

"What are the differences?"

"j'Brenithi are taller, seven to eight feet being the standard range, and they have — I wish I were joking about this, but I'm not — red skin and short black horns."

"You're joking."

"I'm not."

"Cloven hooves and a forked tail would round out the imagery nicely," Natasha said.

"Fortunately, it doesn't go that far."

"Still, there could be a bit of a PR problem if they ever tried to make contact."

"The thought occurred. I still don't know what you're doing here."

_Assessing_. "Traditionally, there's a post-mission debriefing," Natasha said instead.

Jean gave a faint sigh, and rolled with the change of subject once again. "Yes. I'd thought we would do it tomorrow morning, after everyone has rested."

Natasha gave her a pointed look.

"Believe me, I'll sleep quite well tonight," she said. "But right now I have—"

She reached for a stack of papers, but not in time.

"Grain consumption reports," Natasha said, skimming the headers. "Inventories of additives used in ore refinement. Quantity of lumber per wagonload. Yes, I can see how this couldn't have waited another second."

"It's my job."

"The numbers will be here in the morning. What are you hiding from?"

"Not a bad question," Kel said from just outside the doorway.

Jean jolted hard in her seat and raised a hand to her heart. "I have asked you not to do that."

"Yes, you have," she said, not sounding terribly stressed about it.

Embarrassingly — and not for the first time — Natasha had been equally taken by surprise. When she wanted to, Kel could out-stealth a ghost. "The next time you're on Earth," she said, "if you felt like teaching a course on covert techniques, I know a couple of organizations that would pay handsomely."

"An interesting thought," Kel said, then shifted her attention. "Jean?"

"Yes?"

"Go to bed."

Jean gave a startled bark of laughter. "As tempting as the thought is, I just sent Vision—"

"To the other camp and back, yes," Kel said. "I saw him when he left. I'll stay here to meet him, and if anything happens besides your message, I'll tell you. So go to bed."

Jean drew a breath to argue. Kel arched her eyebrows slightly. And Jean exhaled again, without a word.

Natasha was reasonably certain that Jean was, consciously or unconsciously, denying herself rest as a means of paying penance for Harold and the jaguar. The desire to take responsibility was good; letting misplaced guilt warp her judgment was bad. Natasha had been probing the edges of the problem, looking for the most efficient way in. But in the space of a few heartbeats and with a single look, Kel got it, and Jean got that she got it, and acquiesced.

"I get the impression that I will not be permitted to accomplish anything this afternoon," she said dryly.

"No," said Kel.

"No," said Natasha.

"All right." She planted her hands on the desk and pushed back her chair. "I'll get off my feet for a few hours. Will that stop the harangue?"

"For now," Kel said. "You'll speak of the mission to the camp tonight, and we can talk after."

Jean plucked her precious consumption reports from Natasha's hands, and made a show of reordering them and placing them down just so. Then, with one last harrumph of irritation, she finally showed herself out.

"Nicely done," Natasha said once she'd left.

"I earned the right," Kel replied. It was, unambiguously, a rebuke.

And it stung a bit, too. "After two months, are we still outsiders in your eyes?"

"There are, I think, suggestions Steve would take from you, that he wouldn't take from me," Kel said. "Is it true?"

"Only if we grant the premise that Steve takes suggestions from anyone, and I'm not sure the evidence is in favor."

Kel cracked a smile at that. "Yes, all right. I don't mean to say that you were out of place. Only that it's my responsibility. I taught Jean how to kill. I'll teach her how to live with it."

It wasn't just the act of killing in combat. It was the burden of making choices with other people's lives, and sometimes watching those choices end badly. But Natasha suspected that Kel knew that.

"By the end of this," she said, "there could be quite a lot to live with."

"I know," Kel said. "So does she. So we deal with one piece at a time."

 

* * *

 

By the next morning, Tony was feeling almost human again. He met Peter for breakfast, and the two of them were joined by Alisha and Maryam. Tony learned that Maryam had been helping out in the lab in the absence of the rest of the explosives team. But he didn't learn much more than that, because Alisha asked about their trip and Peter promptly launched into a somewhat exaggerated version of the big spider crab battle. At least it was a better choice of story than any of the times they all wound up yelling at each other.

Once breakfast was done and the rest of the camp denizens were at their usual work shifts, the newly returned team of nine plus Vision all got together and had a long chat about the mission. Jean gave a brief and dispassionate recitation of the killer moss incident that nevertheless left Peter squirming. Natasha took over when it came time for the giant leopard story; her version (and Tony agreed with this) emphasized Jean's quick and adaptable thinking in the face of an unforeseeable emergency.

The only point where they all foundered was at revelation of Jean and Kel's secret history. Vision needed to have the new information, but broaching the topic right then would almost certainly turn the war council into a… fracture council, or whatever.

"There was a discussion that you weren't privy to," Jean said to Vision, "that has significant bearing on all of our choices once the final portal arrives. It does not, however — and I trust we're in agreement on this? — have any bearing on the war. I propose that your team fill you in at another time, while we remain on topic this morning." She looked over at Steve for confirmation.

"I agree that there should be two separate conversations," Steve said, "but no one's suggesting that you should be cut out of the other one."

"In the longer run, I hope not, but you have to agree that part of the issue is an internal Avengers matter."

"To everyone in the crowd not up on modern Earth culture," Barton interjected, "this is called 'vagueblogging'."

"Yes, this is ridiculous," Natasha said. "Vision, Tony and I will fill you in tonight. Between the two of us, I think we can cover all the major viewpoints. Tony?"

"Tomorrow morning," Tony countered. "Tonight I have a thing."

Barton muttered something under his breath about what the hell kind of _thing_ Tony could have, but Natasha accepted it with a nod. "Tomorrow, then. Is that all right?"

"Since I don't yet have the information, I can hardly comment on the timing of the information," Vision said, reasonably. "However, if all are in agreement that the matter is not a pressing one, then I am prepared to wait."

The rest of the conversation was reasonably professional and productive. Steve, in particular, finally seemed to have gotten it through his head that Tony _did not want to talk_. He didn't say a word to him, in fact, although Tony did catch a couple of doleful gazes, quickly averted. Which was damned annoying, but not quite annoying enough to start a fight over.

The strategy types had a lot to chew on, but Tony's marching orders, fundamentally, hadn't changed: they needed mines, as many as possible, yesterday. When the meeting broke up, Peter headed off with Vision to work on the safe travel corridor, which was also a high priority, and Tony made his way to the laboratory.

When he met up with Alisha, she was all but buzzing with a combination of excitement and nerves. "I did a bit of tinkering while you were gone," she said, "and I discovered something. A variant on our formula." She handed over her notes.

Tony scanned the calculations. Fundamentally, an explosive compound was potential energy, packed in tight with delicate care. Their previous formula, though based on terrestrial TNT, gave an energy yield per gram about twenty percent higher, putting it in the same ballpark as dynamite.

Now, it looked like Alisha had massaged it and sweet-talked it into tacking on another fifteen percent on top of that.

(In fact, Tony had roughed out some similar ideas on paper during the trip. But that didn't change the fact that Alisha had gotten there independently, and she'd been the one to make it work.)

"I mean, the manufacturing process is a lot more finicky," she continued as he read. "I had one bad moment where I thought we were going to lose another roof. But… worth it, right? The, uh, Vision helped me set up a test a week ago, and I confirmed the increased energy yield."

"Any stability issues?" Tony asked.

"The new version's definitely got more personality," she said. "The end-stage wash needs to be done at least three times, or else there's no way in hell I'd stack a bunch of these things on a cart for transport. But I think we can still ensure a reasonable safety margin. What do you think?"

Tony knew it was unkind to leave her in suspense like this. Alisha was sounding progressively more nervous, like Tony was going to point to an arithmetic mistake and send her back to the drawing board even though she'd already confirmed her own results.

"I think I almost pity your soon-to-be-former employer," he said. "They have no idea what they'll be losing when Stark Industries poaches you." He gestured toward the workbench. "Go ahead. Show off. Show me everything."

So that was a good afternoon. After a long march in which Tony had been little more than cargo, it felt fantastic to be back in his element.

It was also a SHED day. Following dinner, Tony and Kel went and sat with the pickaxes.

"I'm actually doing pretty well today," was what he'd intended to say.

By the time the words reached his lips, however, they'd morphed into a recitation of every last thing that pissed him off about Steven Grant Rogers.

(Because that was always what it came back to, wasn't it? No matter what Tony did, Steve was still _there_. A constant reminder of… of loss and lies and grief and rage. Potential energy packed in, and not all that delicately.)

A large number of grievances later, when he'd finally run out of steam, Kel asked, "Did it help?"

They had a strict rule about not throwing the pickaxes. Tony sat very still and reviewed the 'no throwing pickaxes' rule in every particular before replying, "No."

She stayed silent. She was big on deliberate silences. Tony used to hate it, not least because he would end up talking more and saying things that he'd been trying not to say. But he'd come to appreciate the opportunity to regain some equilibrium after an emotional spike like that. He breathed. The anger was flowing out again — that, at least, happened faster these days.

"I know you're angry," Kel said after a long moment. "You have reasons to be angry. But to live the anger again and again does nothing but make a scar."

They'd long since moved two chairs into the SHED shed, but Tony didn't get much use out of his. He stood up and paced as best he could in the cramped space.

"It occurs to me that we've strayed from the point a little," he said. "These things used to be about… combat-induced whatever."

"These things are about what you need. A question?"

Asking before she asked meant that he was going to hate it. "Yeah, shoot."

"Could you bear it, do you think, if he forgives you?"

Tony spun on his heel. " _He_ forgives _me_ , are you—"

"There are debts on both sides," Kel said. "Yes?"

Fuck. That one took a _lot_ of tooth-grinding before he managed to spit out, "Yes."

"Yes. Too many, I think, and the ways you speak of them are too different. There is no balance. So either you end it and separate, or you forgive."

"But I _can't_ separate from him — that's the _point_. As long as we're stuck here together, he's just going to keep pushing."

"Maybe," Kel said. "Or maybe he panics now because he doesn't know what the possibilities are. If you want it to end — if you're done forever — then you say so once, and then you owe him nothing. I think he would respect your choice. If this is your choice."

Tony couldn't even begin to disentangle the mass of conflicting responses touched off by that scenario.

"Or," she said, "both forgive, and choose to begin as equals again. He wants this, I think it's clear." She paused and let Tony breathe some more before adding, gently, "Maybe you take some time to think about what you want."

Another rule was that SHED talks stayed in the shed, and friendship resumed outside of it. They talked about other things, easier things, for a little while longer, then walked out together into the waning evening light.

"There's something I've been meaning to ask," Tony said as they strolled back toward the dorms. "I've become cognizant of — actually, I shouldn't suggest that this is some abrupt revelation. Quite the contrary, it's past time for me to acknowledge the pronounced disparity in—"

"Tony?" Kel said. "If this isn't a medical question, the words need to be smaller."

He winced. "Crap. Sorry. I'm an asshole. I meant— by the way, how many languages do you speak?"

"To say simple things? Many," she said. "But only a few to have conversations this long. After so many years, Human is one of my better ones."

Every single time. "It's still English," Tony said.

"Yes, whatever."

"And anyway, my original point was… can I do anything for you? Because you've helped me, specifically, personally, quite a lot, and I just… don't want to be all 'take' and no 'give'." His face had gone hot and his hands were making way too many gestures, and he could barely glance her way to gauge her reaction. But this was important, and should have been said a long time ago.

They reached the picnic tables. Peter was hanging out with the Avengers, which was… fine. That was fine. No reason the kid had to carry Tony's grudges. Tony's usual table was free, and he and Kel sat down.

"You carry no debt to me," Kel told him. "And you don't take anything that damages. If these conversations became difficult for me, I would talk to you about how to change them."

"Okay, that… doesn't make me feel any better, but I guess that's more my problem then yours," Tony said. "Let me be more concrete, then. A ways back — a long ways back — we talked a little bit about… you use a prosthetic sometimes, right? A hook, for your arm? And by the way, if you don't want to talk about this, obviously that's fine, just say the word and I'll back off."

"It's not a problem to talk about my arm," Kel said. "Yes, if I need to climb, I wear a hook."

"Yeah. Well, if you were interested, I had some thoughts on improved designs. Made a few sketches. For day-to-day use, and also for various combat scenarios. But to put a prototype together, it would help to see the rig you use now, and to take some measurements." He made himself meet her eyes, desperately hoping that the gesture was landing as intended. "Is that cool with you? Positive modifier?"

"Yes, this is fine," she said, and he began to relax a little. "As long as you know that you don't have to."

"I want to. My choice."

Kel's arm rested on the table between them. Around camp, she wore a T-shirt and jacket like the rest of them. She kept the left sleeve long, and the right trimmed back to her elbow. The site of the amputation had no traces of surgical or other scarring.

"I've also been curious," Tony said cautiously, "and again, if this is off-limits, consider it withdrawn with apologies… but you weren't born this way. The hand was severed, right? In combat?"

"Yes."

"Given your healing capacity, I'm a little surprised that it couldn't be reattached."

Kel showed no discomfort with the topic, or anger at his nosiness. "If there had been time to stop, probably I could have," she said. "I know others who had a limb removed, and grew the connection back. But for me, there was no time for this."

"No time," Tony repeated, and narrowed his eyes. "Are you saying you… kept fighting after your hand got cut off? How long?"

"The sun came up." She smiled gently at his shock. "The enemy had a base. Many guards, many weapons. We attack for a long time, and they hold us off, but it costs them. Still many weapons, but not enough people to use them all at once, yes? More Brenith forces are expected in time to attack at dawn. My squadron — five of us — are sent ahead to enter quietly and disable defenses, if we can. But what we learn on the way is that the enemy also expects more forces, and they are much closer. Our people walk into a trap. There is, between two mountains—" she sketched a V shape in the air "—a lower place? The only easy way across?"

"A mountain pass," Tony said. "Or just a pass."

"Mountain pass. This is where the enemy comes through. Lin and I circle around to stop them, and the other three continue to the base. The enemy arrives. We fight."

She'd told him once that a small group could turn an army. At the time, it had registered but not really sunk in that she'd been speaking from experience. Now Tony felt like he was standing beside her in the dark, trapped between two mountains, watching columns of troops advance.

"What happened?" he asked.

"We began at the south end of the pass," Kel said. "Through the night, they pushed us back and back, all the way to the north end. But we held. The sun came up, and my hand was gone, and Lin was dead. I think I remember when she died, but… the memory changes, sometimes. The hand I don't remember at all. There are parts when I still have it, and parts when I don't. This should make it clear what order to put them in, but… it confuses, to try." She gave her head a quick shake. "But one part I remember perfectly: the sun came up, and the entire length of the pass was covered with the enemy dead. Twenty-five twenty-fives or more. Dead, or close, or in pieces. My hand somewhere with them, and Lin's body also. I never saw them again. Only the dead. I never killed so many before.

"The rest of my squadron did their job. When our people arrived, the base was vulnerable. We took it that day. Broke the line of the enemy defense across that part of the country. Their capital city fell three months later. Ress, of my squadron, was also killed, but Gath and Til and I survived. Our names were spoken widely."

The 'spoken widely' thing was a high compliment in her culture, Tony knew, but she didn't relay it like someone who was pleased with her accomplishments.

"That must be a difficult memory," he offered.

"I did my job," she said. "But then… it was enough. I left active combat soon after." She looked away, almost shyly. "Does it change what you think of me, to hear about something like this?"

"Look, you served your country," Tony said. "Or your clan, or however they phrase it where you come from." He took a second to make sure he knew where he was going before he opened his mouth. "Okay, I _really_ hope this makes it across the cultural divide, but… you have a gentle way about you." His brain unhelpfully conjured the image of the time she'd snapped Jean's arm like a twig, and he added, "A lot of the time. Like the way you are with the kid. And… me, of course, that one night, various other instances… um. My point being, I think that maybe… gentleness wasn't a trait that was valued in you when you were young? Which means you had to find it for yourself later on. A choice. If anything, that makes me respect you more."

Kel reached over to touch his arm. "See? You already do things for me, Tony."

(He was going to build her the best damned range of prosthetic hands this planet's primitive tech could muster.)

 

* * *

 

Steve checked in with Vision following his conversation with Tony and Natasha. He seemed to have absorbed the news calmly (not that Vision was really the type to fly off the handle in any event).

"A complicated situation," he said. "It warrants further discussion. However, I am inclined to agree with the general consensus that no immediate action is required."

That was about as much as Steve could have hoped for.

Two days later, the third supply delivery came and went without a hitch. Steve watched from cover as Wanda and Alisha used their respective gifts to implant their cover story in the guards' minds and send them back to the garrison with nothing to report. The camp gained another twenty-five days of freedom.

They had two more deliveries to cover this way. The third would come with forty new camp guards, kicking off the second phase of their plan and bringing them a step closer to open warfare.

Seventy-five days. The team needed to make the most of them.

Steve and Jean had been working on a training schedule. There were several factors to consider: Steve's fitness was still a work in progress, Wanda and Vision had no need to practice with swords and spears, everyone else's skill levels varied widely, and Jean insisted that they all continue to take part in the standard camp work shifts. To start with, Jean and Steve had agreed to institute daily weapons training sessions for those expecting to use them. Jean also wanted to leave for the beta site, but she postponed her plans by a day so that they could run the first session together. She and Kel had an established training space behind the shower building, and that was where Steve was headed.

But he pulled up short when Tony stepped out from around the corner and stopped dead in his path.

"Consider this my attempt to purchase insurance against future ambushes," Tony announced. "And yes, I realize I'm ambushing you right now, but just shut up and listen."

Steve shut up and listened.

Whatever Tony wanted to say, he apparently had to assemble it from widely scattered pieces. There was a long and awkward pause in which he was plainly engaged in a severe internal struggle, and Steve could only keep silent and wait it out.

Then Tony blurted, "I don't want him dead."

Steve sucked in a sharp breath.

"Siberia notwithstanding — and frankly I don't think I should be judged solely on my response to the very worst thirty seconds of my entire life… um." Tony cleared his throat. "My point is, I do… acknowledge the circumstances. The circumstances are hereby acknowledged."

Quietly, Steve said, "Thank you."

"Now. If this is ever going to be fixed — if that's what you want — I need you to back off. Stop pushing. _Stop_. _Please_." For the first time since he'd appeared, he looked Steve in the eye. "Can you do that?"

Steve's heart was thudding in his chest. This was the first sign of hope he'd seen in two months. A way back.

He gave a slow, formal nod. "Yes."

Tony's chin jerked downward in response, then he turned and walked off.

Whether Tony would count it as pushing or not, Steve wasn't sure, but he had to take the risk. "Tony?" he said. "When you're ready, I'll be here."

Tony's stride barely hitched, and he didn't look back. But he heard him.

All right.

Steve had to take a minute to refocus, and as such he was the last one to arrive. Jean was standing a bit apart, while the rest — Nat, Sam, Clint and Kel — milled about, stretching and lightly chatting. A complement of weapons stood against the wall of the building.

He joined up with Jean, and the rest of the group stilled.

"We all know the timeline," Steve said. "For many of us, this is a strange environment, with unfamiliar weapons and new allies. Our job in the next seventy-five days is to form ourselves into a unified fighting force." He looked at Jean.

"The weapons we have available are swords, spears, knives and bows," she said. "If you have more specialized requests, I can take them to our blacksmith. I believe Tony is also preparing to forge armor of some kind, and he'll request individual specifications in due course." She gave her understated smile. "I don't need to tell any of you who the marksman is. Kel is an expert with the sword, and no matter how good you might think you are with a knife, she can probably teach you something there, too. I have a certain facility with the spear." She turned back to Steve.

"Choose a specialty," he said. "If you've already got one, share your skills and work on expanding your horizons." He took a second to look at his people. _Their_ people. Their army, ready and waiting. "We have what we need. Let's get to work."

 


	34. Chapter 34

Tony didn't even know why he was surprised. Steve had been told not to push, so obviously he would find a way to pull.

Admittedly, almost three full weeks of peace and quiet happened first. Freed from soggy camping trips and ill-considered conversations, Tony could focus on his many manufacturing projects, and on the kid.

Peter was acquiring more responsibilities. Each morning, if he was in camp, he helped refill the water reservoirs. He and Vision took a trip every five days to harvest more jellyfish-thread discs and extend the safe travel corridor. (Only on this awful, awful planet could that sentence make sense.) Naturally, he continued to help out in the lab. Now and then, Kel took him out on patrol: only for the afternoon at first, but as Tony's comfort level grew, they graduated to overnight and even two-day runs. The primary purpose was for Kel to acquire the various toxins that she used to build chemical weapons (the latter step, of course, she did not involve Peter in).

He was doing a good job. And Tony, working off of experience and the holes that experience had left behind, made a conscious effort to tell him so.

Mostly, though, Tony just had to be a willing audience for the kid's enthusiasm. Every trip outside the camp was subsequently recounted like a grand adventure. Things that made a particular impression: Vision's flight capacity, Kel's extra-human senses, and each new alien squirrel or lizard or bug.

(It was almost like some _other_ teenaged Spiderling had been bitten by killer moss not so long ago.)

On this particular evening, Peter had turned in early in preparation for another disc run the next morning, and Tony was using the last half-hour of daylight to check some calculations. Sitting quietly, minding his own business.

"It suits you."

He turned quickly and found Steve hovering behind him. "What?"

"Mentorship," Steve said. "Spider-Man obviously looks up to you, and you're bringing out good things in him. I admire that."

Then he just walked away. That son of a _bitch_.

Later, after Tony had complained to Kel, she said, "Is it possible that he said this because he meant it?"

" _That_ ," Tony growled, "is exactly the problem."

 

* * *

 

Jean and Kel had a game. They started off back to back at the edge of the camp, and raced full tilt in opposite directions around the perimeter. Every time their paths crossed, they fought hand-to-hand to a takedown or debilitating strike. Nine times out of ten, it was Jean who got thrown to the dirt. Given what Steve knew about Kel's alien advantages, the fact that it went differently the tenth time meant that Jean was very, very good.

It was a simple game. Steve liked it. Jean let him join her team.

He was still figuring out the capabilities of this particular incarnation of his body. He could keep up with Jean in their footrace, but she had three or four more laps in her by the time he was quivering with exhaustion. (And Kel was barely breathing hard by the time Jean couldn't take another step.) When they clashed, Kel dispatched him with embarrassing ease, but then she did that to everyone.

Whenever he got frustrated — which, all right, was pretty much all the time — he reminded himself of how far he'd come. Yes, a three-mile run left his legs shaking and his lungs burning and that was _ridiculous_ , but two months ago, he couldn't run at all. Progress only seemed nonexistent on a day-to-day scale. He _was_ improving, and whatever the limits of this body were, he hadn't hit them yet. He just had to keep working.

It didn't always help, but he reminded himself anyway.

Another round ended, and Steve was done for the day. He pushed himself up on his elbows and tried to catch his breath. Kel had popped him in the ribs but good before cutting his legs out from under him, and he was still winded from the hit. Every muscle was trembling like a leaf. His throat was parched, and his water was on the other side of the perimeter circuit. Sitting and breathing was pretty much it for the moment.

A shadow fell across him. Steve looked up.

Tony looked angry, which was how Tony always looked when the two of them were in proximity. Steve knew he'd tested the limits the other day, but it had honestly been a spontaneous remark. He braced himself for the fallout.

"What the scorpions did to you out there was a grotesque and indecent violation, and they deserve everything they've got coming for it," Tony announced to the air to Steve's left. "It's damned hard to pull yourself back from something like that. But you are doing so… laudably."

Then he stomped off.

Well. That was… Steve wasn't sure what it was, but it was something.

 

* * *

 

Jean requested a landmine test, because she always had to see things work with her own two eyes, so Tony and Alisha put the finishing touches on their favorite prototype and made the arrangements. On the day of, Kel tagged along, and so did Steve. Because of course he did.

They headed out into the foothills where no one would be bothered. Tony and Alisha armed and buried their mine. Then everyone else backed off and took cover, and Kel tossed a rock at the pressure plate.

Her aim was good. The rock bounced off the plate. A second later, the mine went off with a _BANG_ that shook the ground and sent up a blast of dirt and debris ten feet into the air.

"Well," Jean said after a moment. "That should certainly do some damage."

"Those are the anti-personnel mines — the little ones," Tony said. "You want to blow up ships? We can do that, too."

He'd done a lot of weapons presentations in his career, and he knew when the client was impressed. On Earth, this would have been a done deal.

(Alisha still hated the fact that her work was going to be used to kill things. She was locked up and silent. Tony made a mental note to chat with her that evening, see if he could redistribute the strain a little.)

On the way back, he and Jean ran through the current projections of how many and how soon. Through the entire hike, Steve just listened quietly and didn't try any nonsense. Tony was almost starting to think that he would get away clean.

Then, when they'd gotten back to camp and were on the verge of going their separate ways, Steve said to him, "We would have no chance at this without your weapons. Thank you."

Tony glared as he walked away. _Asshole_.

 

* * *

 

Steve had been serious about getting Spider-Man some fight training. The kid could coast on his enhancements against normal humans, but anything more challenging than that and he'd be in trouble. If Leipzig hadn't driven home the point for him, his repeated failure to get any kind of traction on Kel certainly should have.

It took some time to pin him down, and Steve almost wondered if Tony had loaded up the kid's schedule for exactly that reason. But finally they settled on one evening a week for one-on-one training, in the usual location behind the showers. Steve went all the way back to the fundamentals: balance, elementary technique, not telegraphing moves. Not attempting to solve every problem with a backflip.

He wasn't in the least surprised that Tony spied on them.

He _was_ surprised the day that Tony ceased lurking at a distance and showed himself openly, leaning up against the corner of the building.

"Hey, Mr. Stark!" Spider-Man said. "Do you need me for something?"

"Nah," said Tony. "I was just passing through. Thought I'd see how things were going." For once, he didn't look like he was imagining punching Steve in the teeth. "You're learning from the best here, kid. Make the most of it."

Steve said, "You could join us if—"

" _Pushing_."

"Sorry."

"Anyway." Tony waved one hand vaguely. "Carry on."

Once he was gone, Spider-Man squinted at Steve in obvious confusion. "Are you guys actually talking to each other yet, or…?"

"Right now, I think we're talking _at_ each other," Steve said. "But it's progress."

 

* * *

 

They were supposed to get seventy-five days. They only got fifty.

The fifth delivery crew had just departed, brains lightly scrambled by the resident telepaths. Alisha didn't get drained to the point of passing out anymore, but she was still sufficiently fatigued that Jean escorted her personally to her barracks to rest. Sam and the rest of the backup security detail began to help haul the offloaded crates into camp.

Wanda, who usually helped with the heavy lifting, remained standing at the east road.

Sam and Clint paired up on a midsize crate full of sacks of grain, and carted it to the kitchen. By the time they returned, Wanda still hadn't moved a muscle. Clint gave a jerk of his head, and the two of them headed over to join her.

"Hey, Wanda," Clint said. "What's up?"

She was unresponsive for long enough that Sam began to wonder if she was even aware of them.

Then she said, "It didn't work."

His stomach sank. "Come again?"

Clint leaned past her and said to Sam, "I think maybe the whole gang needs to hear this."

"Yeah, I think you're right." He headed out at a jog (not a sprint, no need to alarm the civilians yet), intercepted Steve and Vision on their way back from ore processing, then picked up Jean by the barracks. Natasha, who had a nose for trouble, was already inbound.

The group of them gathered around Wanda, who was still doing her statue impression.

"It didn't work," she said again.

"What didn't, precisely?" Jean asked.

"The false memories. By tomorrow morning, at least one will realize that what they remember is a lie."

"Tomorrow," Steve said. "So Kel won't pick up on anything unusual while she shadows them today?"

"They're all dreaming still," she said. "As long as the dream lasts, it feels normal. But it won't last beyond sunrise."

Jean exhaled slowly. "Wanda, once this starts, it can't be stopped. Are you certain?"

"Can we take the chance?" Natasha countered. "If we lose the element of surprise, we're dead."

"I'm…" Wanda finally broke off her blank stare, and turned to meet Jean's eyes. "I'm not certain. Not the way you want me to be. But I'm also not wrong."

Jean looked to Steve. He gave a quick nod.

"All right," Jean said, and just like that, the war began. "Vision, can you catch up to Kel and inform her of the change in plans?"

"Of course." He lifted off the ground and accelerated east.

"It seems the timetable for the garrison mission has moved up," she continued. "Everyone taking part, prepare for departure within the hour. Steve, you and I should talk to the admin team, then make a general announcement. Shall we discuss it?"

The two of them moved off.

"I'm sorry," Wanda said quietly.

"Hey, no one else could have gotten us this far," Clint told her. "You did your job. Now we'll do ours."

The garrison mission — a euphemistic phrase for an ugly bit of business — was volunteer-only, and Sam had volunteered. He, Clint and Nat headed for the armory and got geared up. At last report, Kel and Jean would be rounding out the team. Kel's inclusion was obvious; Jean's was not. Sam expected Steve to make a last-minute pitch for taking her place.

Sam loaded up on knives, double-checked his first-aid kit, then cinched up his pack and grabbed his spear. When the three of them returned to the east road, the two teams of oxen and two wagonloads of vibranium that they'd just shipped out were back, minus the five Minotaurs who'd been on escort duty. Presumably Kel would need to clean her sword before go time.

News travelled fast. Jean and Steve had been joined by Kel, Vision and Tony, as well as Tavleen and Anne, the bosses of processing and camp maintenance. They and the loading crews all looked varying degrees of dismayed. Jean had some damage control to do.

Sam and company got within hearing range as Jean finished explaining the situation.

"So you're leaving—" Tony did a double-take at the sight of Sam, Nat and Clint "—Jesus, you're leaving _literally_ now? To go and…"

"Take the garrison," Jean said.

"Right, take it. Sure. Since it's just sitting there and all."

"And yes, as soon as everyone's ready and I've addressed the camp, we'll be leaving," she said. "Considering that you now have a shipment of vibranium to play with, I hardly expect you to notice that we're gone."

Tony demonstrated with an eyeroll that he wasn't impressed with her bravado. But it was clear to Sam that the act wasn't for his sake so much as it was for the civilians.

Not that the civilians were necessarily buying it, either. "Jean," Tavleen said, "in all honesty, how bad is this?"

"One hundred fifty days was always the best-case scenario," Jean replied. "I would never have started this if the best-case scenario was our only chance. Not to mention, we're taking the garrison twenty-five days early, but there's no reason to believe that they're in constant contact with the settlement across the sea. It's entirely possible that the next enemy response will still occur on schedule."

Tavleen looked into Jean's eyes and, like many before her, was disarmed by rock-solid confidence. She spread her hands in acquiescence and said, "We'll keep things running until you get back."

"Of course you will," Jean replied.

She, Tavleen and Anne switched over into sign, the camp's second official language. Sam was getting more fluent, but he still didn't catch every nuance in a rapid-fire conversation like this one. Best he could figure, Jean was asking them to gather everyone together, calmly.

The two section leaders departed. Jean turned to Tony, who was still glowering.

"Does Alisha know yet?" he asked.

"No, I'd left her cabin before I heard," Jean said. "I'll speak to her before we leave."

"This isn't her fault."

"Of course not. It isn't anybody's fault," she added, with a look that included Wanda. "We took a risk and it paid off four times out of five. All things considered, that's a fantastic success rate."

"Yeah." Tony looked around awkwardly, like he'd just noticed the rest of the crowd. "Well, I guess you lot have some castles to storm, so I'll just… uh. Good luck out there." Then he, too, peeled off.

Jean, who was working her way around the circle, now turned to face Steve. "I can guess what you're about to say."

"You don't have to do this," Steve told her, which had also been Sam's guess. "I'll go. You should stay here."

"I don't believe in insulating myself from the consequences of my actions," Jean said. "The garrison is my responsibility."

Steve's mouth tightened in frustration. "Jean, you know I respect the work you've done here," he said, "but you don't have the military training to run this kind of operation."

"Not to start a coup or anything," Clint added, "but he's not wrong."

"I'm aware," Jean replied, unfazed. "That's why I'm not running this one. Kel is."

Heads turned.

"Jean goes," Kel said. "I agreed a long time ago. Steve stays. You'll get a turn later when we take the research outpost," she told him while he was still taking a breath. "But for now, you should stay here and help people not to be nervous."

To Sam's surprise, Steve didn't press the issue further.

"Wanda also stays, in case of emergencies," Kel continued. "Vision, I don't ask you to be a part of the attack, but if you come with us, you could look after the horses, help to carry water, bring messages back to the camp. Is it acceptable?"

"Yes, of course," Vision said. "I am prepared to help in any way I can."

"Good," said Jean. "Then we all know what we're doing. Steve, I still think that the general announcement would be better coming from both of us, if you—"

"Sure," he said shortly. "Whenever you're ready."

They broke away from the group and headed for the center of camp.

There was still work to do. Sam had assumed that they wouldn't bring the horses, given that this was a stealth mission and the horses were pretty much the opposite of stealthy. But Vision's inclusion solved that problem, since he could stop a safe distance from the garrison and look after the horses while the rest of the team completed the trip on foot. So: horses saddled, food and water rations and other survival gear all packed, weapons checked one last time. Kel split off from the rest of them to gather her little science projects, which Sam was trying not to think about.

Steve and Jean made their speech to the camp, and it seemed to go over pretty well. (And really, what were people going to do — revolt? Jean was still the only game in town.) Then she slipped away to change clothes and make her own preparations, and Sam grabbed the chance to have a quick chat with Steve. They left the dining area together and strolled toward the east road, where horses, gear and teammates were converging.

"Everything all right, Sam?" Steve asked.

"Funny, that was going to be my line," he replied. "You obviously don't want to be left behind on this one. I was expecting a bit more of a fight."

Steve chuckled quietly. "Yeah. Believe me, I wanted to. But pushing people isn't a strategy that's gotten me a lot of results lately. I guess I'm trying something new."

This, Sam supposed, had its origins in the Tony situation. After the dust-up on the reconnaissance mission, the two of them had been giving each other a wide berth, and Steve had been more subdued and reflective overall. Sam hadn't asked him about it directly — because, again, _not_ managing that mess — but he'd noticed the repercussions.

"That's fair," he said. "Jean wasn't going to budge. And if we can't have you calling the shots, at least Kel's… you know."

"Experienced?"

"I'd've gone with 'terrifying', but sure."

It did occur to him that focusing on Steve's reaction to the mission was a convenient way to distract himself from his own reaction to the mission, which was… mixed, at best. Guys firing on him? He'd fire back, no problem. Wholesale slaughter was a whole other thing.

But what was the alternative — taking prisoners? They weren't set up for it, they couldn't spare the time and resources to get set up for it, and keeping enemy combatants around would put the civilians in jeopardy. No, the argument, however distasteful, was also airtight. This had to be done.

Sam and Steve joined the rest of the team: Kel, Jean, Clint, Nat and Vision. The two horses were saddled and waiting nearby. They were, as yet, nameless. Given how Harold had met his end, folks were a bit leery of getting attached.

"Steve, good," Kel said. "Before we leave, we can confirm the time. Vision, I think you could move very quickly between the camp and the garrison, yes?"

"Yes, the round trip would take me approximately three hours," he said.

Kel paused and looked at Jean, who flashed some numbers in sign.

"Your measurements are ridiculous," she muttered. "But all right. With the horses, we might only need four days to travel. Five at the most. The attack will take one night, and Vision reports it to Steve the next morning."

"And if I don't hear anything on the sixth day?" Steve asked.

"Then something went very badly and you should panic."

She had a way with words. "I'll pencil it in," Steve said. Then he paused, and took a look around the group. "Take good care of my people, all right?"

Kel smiled. "Of course," she said, and held out her fist in that not-quite-a-handshake thing she did.

Steve bumped wrists with her. "Good luck," he said to all of them. "See you in about ten days."

Then he departed, and the mood began to shift.

"Before we go," Jean said, "let us have the thing stated plainly so that there is no misunderstanding. Our mission is to kill everyone — Nyth, Mjentur or otherwise — currently occupying the enemy garrison. No prisoners, and no escapes. We make a clean sweep, by any means necessary. Is everyone clear on this?"

Clint asked, "Do we have any idea what kind of numbers we're talking?"

"When I was there with Natasha, there were between five and six twenty-fives of Mjentur, and six Nyth," Kel said. "Hopefully this didn't change much."

"And is there some kind of plan in the works?"

"I have most of it," she said. "Just a few details that we won't know until we get there. We have time to discuss on the way."

Sam hadn't been planning to ask. He wasn't sure he wanted to hear the answer. But he also couldn't pretend that the question didn't exist. "While we're putting things on the table," he said, "are we claiming that the entire complex is clear of civilians?"

Natasha said, quietly, "Sam."

"A war crime doesn't stop being a war crime because it happens on a different planet. Are we proposing to massacre civilians with chemical weapons, yes or no?"

"Every Mjentur who is here was hired to work in the labor camps," Kel said. "A group this size? Some don't train in combat. They just keep the records. You make this difference — 'soldier' and 'civilian' — that I don't completely understand. But if it's the jobs they do, then no, not all are soldiers. For me, the choice to be here still carries a debt. If it's different for you, maybe you shouldn't come."

He respected Kel. That wasn't the issue. She was tough and dedicated and loyal, and their entire operation would have been dead in the water without her. But Sam didn't think he'd ever be completely comfortable with her. When she was in healer mode, she was gentle and compassionate, but she could also switch all that off, and aim herself at a target and do whatever it took to make it dead. He'd matched his spear against her sword in training (and lost), and worked with her on knife technique (and lost some more). A person's fighting style said something about them, and she was as efficient a killer as he'd ever met.

She wasn't going to feel this at all. That was what he had (and hadn't) wanted to know.

Sam _was_ going to feel it. And that was exactly why he couldn't pass the buck.

"I've got no love for slave traders, believe me," he said. "I'm still in. Like Jean said, I just want to be clear on exactly what we'll be living with."

"Other questions?" Jean inquired. Silence was the response. "Then let's head out."

 

* * *

 

They walked. That part wasn't hard. The forest never completely ceased to be a pain in the ass, but there seemed to be fewer major predators out this way compared with other missions Sam had run. The Minotaurs travelled this route often. Maybe they'd cleared out the worst of the threats.

With the help of Vision and the two horses, they made excellent time. Around mid-afternoon on the fourth day, Kel brought them to a halt and informed them that they were close to the territory that the Minotaurs regularly patrolled.

They'd had plenty of time to work and rework the plan of attack. There were still parts of it that Sam didn't like. Actually, he'd be hard-pressed to name a part of it he _did_ like. But they all agreed that it was the best shot they were going to get.

Most of them just had to rest until nightfall. They set up camp, tethered the horses, and broke out the rations. Kel, meanwhile, started doing her camo paint.

In camp, she wore beige like everyone else, but for missions she had proper camouflage fatigues. She was wearing a prosthetic, but not the simple hook that Sam had seen her with before. This had a more sophisticated grasping mechanism, plus a sharpened edge along the outside. (A knife for a hand — it suited her.) Kel coated the metal in a dull grey dust to prevent it from reflecting light, pulled a cap down over her hair, and headed out to run reconnaissance.

Jean, having no military training, would have been within her rights to be antsy, but if the mission was working her nerves, she hid it well. The camp uniform, of course, would have been completely inappropriate for a stealth mission like this, so she was wearing fatigues borrowed from — amusingly enough — Steve. She sat with her back to a tree, one knee pulled up and the other foot tucked beneath her, and ate the evening's ration of rehydrated grains.

By this point, there wasn't a whole lot of talking that needed to be done. Natasha pointed out the intruder-detecting shrubbery (because this planet was _ridiculous_ ). They all made one last pass of the whetstone across knives and swords and spearpoints, more out of habit than anything else. Clint made minute adjustments to bowstring and arrows.

By Sam's estimate, they waited two and a half, maybe three hours. The sun was dipping below the horizon and the forest floor was almost completely in shadow when suddenly Natasha stood and spun and threw a knife.

Sam jolted to his feet and pulled a knife of his own out of sheer reflex, although by the time he'd turned to face the threat, he knew what he would find.

"Hey, Kel," Clint said, without looking up. "Any problems?"

She was holding the goddamned knife by the hilt, the blade about an inch from her chest. "No, it was basically what I expected," she said.

"You know," Sam said, "one of these days, this little game of yours is going to blow up in your faces."

Kel passed the knife back to Natasha, and they gave identical shrugs.

"A knife through the heart wouldn't kill her," Natasha said.

"This is true." Kel pulled a folded-up piece of paper from one of her pockets and tossed it to Clint. "Here's the count. You'll need to turn it into your numbers."

The page was covered in tally marks. "One seventy," Clint said after a moment's study. "A bit higher than we thought. These are all Minotaurs?"

"Yes. Also eight Nyth." She gave the number in sign for emphasis. "More than I wanted, but not impossible. I expect about five twenty-fives of the Mjentur will sleep soon, while the rest take the border and other overnight security positions."

"Five against forty-five," Clint said. "And I thought this was going to be tough."

Sam caught Jean's slight frown. She wasn't much for gallows humor.

"Many will focus on me," Kel said. "You'll mostly meet smaller groups. Destroy any you find, but the most important thing is—"

"Don't worry, we know," Sam said. "We'll get it done. You're the one who has the tough part. You sure you're up for this?"

She shrugged again. "It won't be so much damage. Vision, we travel the rest of the way very slowly. Probably close to dawn when the attack is done. Don't come before this."

"Understood," he said. "Be safe."

The combat team gathered their gear and set out.

This planet didn't have a moon. Sam was embarrassed at how long it had taken him to notice, and the realization itself had really driven home the fact that he was on an alien planet in an alien universe. They were a long, long way from home.

More to the point, every night was a dark one. The detector bushes' little red-lined bulbs were almost impossible to see, which meant that they were walking through a dense forest while trying not to touch any plants. It was, as Kel had predicted, extremely slow going. They crept along, single-file and silent, for at least another hour, until Kel brought them to a halt.

She dug into her pack and came up with this planet's answer to synchronized watches. It was a plant, of course: specifically, a root that resembled a carrot, but dull yellow instead of orange. There was a nodule on the top that, once snapped off, triggered a faint glow through the length of the root. The light faded slowly and went dark in a standardized length of time.

Kel handed over two of them. "It will probably take you more than the length of the first one to reach the barrier," she said. "When the second one ends, start your attack."

Sam said, "And if you're not in position by then?"

"I will be."

They'd run this argument before, with the same results: she would be there, because she said she would be there, and that was that.

"See you on the other side," Natasha said.

Kel faded into the blackness.

Nat nodded to Clint, who cracked the cap of the first glowstick root and stashed it inside his jacket where the light wouldn't give away their position.

"It's at least another hour from here," she said. "Stay close, and watch your step. Let's go."

More creeping. More delicately moving undergrowth aside with sword and spear. Natasha, as the one who'd been this way before, was on point. Sam followed, then Jean, then Clint. There was a level of mental stress to this that, in its own way, was even more fatiguing than the twenty-five-mile days had been. Every step had to be actively analyzed. Every leaf assessed for danger. Sam had knots in his shoulders and sweat running down his spine by the time Natasha signalled a halt.

She went on alone to verify their position, and returned several minutes later. By design, they were far enough from the garrison that the sound of combat wouldn't carry back. However, it was possible that there were patrol teams outside the barrier who could pick up on stray conversations. They switched to hand signs.

"Time?" Nat asked Clint.

He turned his back and checked inside his jacket. "Half," he responded. This was the second of the roots; roughly another half-hour, then.

"Hold position," she ordered, and they all settled in to wait.

Kel would be in the water by now, if everything was going to plan. Whether she made it _out_ of the water was down to her alien stuff. The conversation they'd had about this had been, to Sam's mind, less than satisfactory.

_"The last time we tried this," Natasha said, "you were very clear that no one was getting in through the water."_

_"Humans can't," Kel replied. "There are… all of your animal names, I never remember." She wiggled her hand. "Scales and no legs and poison in the fangs. Not fish. Socks?"_

_"Snakes," quite a few people said._

_"Snakes. There are these, in the rocks in the shallow water. They smell warm blood and attack in large numbers."_

_Clint said, "And… this is making your case how?"_

_"Nerve poisons don't work on me, and I swim fast."_

And that was all the reassurance they had.

Assuming she wasn't eaten by sea snakes, she then had to make her way through the most heavily patrolled sector of the compound, locate the Minotaurs' barracks buildings, and drop in her pods of airborne neurotoxin. Then… well, that was when things would get tough.

(Part of him was cowardly enough to think, _At least she's the one dropping the pods and not me_. Another part tried to convince him that death by gas or by spearpoint didn't matter a whole lot in the end. Sam wasn't too fond of either of those parts.)

Motion caught his eye. Clint's hand.

"Go time," Clint signalled.

No choices now. Only the job. Sam shut down all other considerations and focused.

Jean reached for the closest detection bush, and ran her bare hand through it.

They'd been told that the signal travelled slowly. Chemical reactions, not electric ones. So it was another long stretch of waiting before Natasha signalled movement.

Kel had predicted that the first response would be a well-armed scouting party, four to six strong. Sure enough, Nat signed six hostiles, and gave their bearing and distance. Sam and Jean went left, Clint and Nat went right.

Beside him, Jean's fists tightened around the shaft of her spear. She was a quick study, but still out of her element (not that the whole swords-and-spears thing was exactly Sam's element, either). The nerves were palpable. Sam reached out and clasped her shoulder, and she turned quickly.

Not really the right environment for pep talks. The best he could do was give her a firm nod. _You got this, Boss-Lady_.

She nodded back, and slowly unclenched her hands.

Footsteps. Sam eased his way around the tree he was using for cover, and caught sight of the horns. Five… no, six sets. As they moved closer, overlapping shadows resolved into bodies: Minotaurs, spread out and with drawn swords. They moved with surprising stealth, all things considered. Sam's people crouched at the ready.

There was a _thunk_ , and the last Mino in line went down with an arrow in his throat.

The next one up turned fast at the sound of the collapsing body, and it was the last thing he did. Jean burst from cover and swung her spear. A quick circle knocked the sword from the Mino's hand, then she thrust upward with the point and skewered him through the neck.

Sam and Natasha closed the trap. Another Mino took an arrow and went down. Natasha's sword flashed and the hot scent of blood hit Sam's nostrils. She cut down one instantly and engaged the next. Sam's target swung his sword hard, and Sam deflected the blow off his spearpoint. Back up, deflect, yield, until the Mino lunged too eagerly. Sam spun to the outside and cracked the Mino's knee before he could regain his balance. He drew breath to bellow, but the sound was cut off when Sam swung and sliced open his throat.

And that was the last of them. The team gathered itself again. Jean was breathing a little hard, but seemed basically steady.

Six down, less than forty to go. They hoped.

Whoever was in command had to wait long enough to be convinced that their scouts would not be reporting back. Then they had to decide what to do about it. It was a narrow window of opportunity.

The team split up. Sam and Jean angled south, while Clint and Natasha went north.

They found grain fields, just like Natasha had described. These were the low-security areas of the compound, though the perimeter was still patrolled by pairs of Minos.

_An intruder alert comes in. Obviously you send out a party to investigate. But your guys don't come back. So whatever's out there is at least potentially a serious problem. What do you do next? You go wake up your soldiers and put them on alert. But when you try and roust them, guess what you find…_

A cry went up from further inside the compound. Kel's handiwork had been discovered. In the face of clear evidence that the enemy had already breached the perimeter, there was no damned point in patrolling grain fields. The boundary guards drew their swords and fell back to someplace more critical.

Allowing Sam and Jean to cross the barrier undisturbed.

Someone hadn't mowed the lawn in a while. The barrier posts sprang from an overgrown strip of bushes and long grass. The grain fields started about ten feet behind the posts, past what looked like a drainage ditch.

They touched their spearpoints to a pair of barrier disks and gained entry. So far, so good. Sam quickened his pace and—

" _Shit_!" Jean yelped and hauled him back by the arm.

The ditch was rapidly filling with water, and carried in that water—

Plant or animal, Sam didn't know and didn't care. They were leafy and snakey and snapping at his ankles. He and Jean slashed with their spears as they backpedalled.

" _Not_  in the plan!" Sam barked, and chopped a leafy head in half.

"Barrier!" Jean warned, and they cut short their retreat.

There were snake bits scattered in front of them, some still wiggling, but nothing big enough to pose a threat. He didn't understand how there could be so many of them — the ditch hadn't been that deep — but at least the remainder seemed to be staying in the water.

"You know what we gotta do, right?" Sam said, and reversed his spear. "Don't think, just do it."

Jean copied his action, aiming the staff end outward and the spearpoint back. Sam spared a second's thought for how much easier this would be with his wings, then took a quick run-up, planted the staff in the ground, and launched himself into the air.

Pole vault wasn't his event. The muddy ground slipped beneath the staff and also a snake sank its fangs into it. He landed badly and tumbled into the field, nearly stabbing himself with his own goddamned spear, and _shit_ , the snake joined him for the ride. He pulled a knife and saw fangs incoming and stabbed.

It thrashed with startling strength, its head fully impaled on Sam's knife. He pulled a second knife and slashed downward, and carved its head from its body.

_That_ , thankfully, finished the job. The pieces of the thing went still.

Jean, who'd vaulted a half-step behind him and had the same amount of trouble, sliced her own stowaway in half and flung its severed head away. The remaining pieces were much more like vines than like parts of an animal.

Sam offered her a hand up, and she took it. "You good?" he asked.

"Stellar. You?"

"Yeah, I'm all right. Let's keep moving."

"Masks first," she said.

Good point. Kel's poison wasn't supposed to spread all that far, but there was no sense in taking chances. They each donned a filter mask.

Just to the right was a dirt path leading between two adjacent fields. Sam checked that the way was clear, then he and Jean set off at a jog. Distantly, he could hear shouted commands from different quarters of the compound. There would be a fevered search underway for Kel right now, probably starting near the barracks and expanding outward. Hopefully he and Jean were too distant to encounter many—

Of _course_ the patrol rounded the corner the moment Sam allowed the thought to form. He dodged off the pathway, Jean hard on his heels, and together they took cover in the grain. Their hiding spot wouldn't have fooled anyone in daylight and could only endure the most cursory glance at night. They had to make this quick.

The patrol team was four strong. Their swords were in their hands, and they walked two by two in close formation. Given what had just happened to over a hundred of their comrades, Sam could understand why they were jumpy.

Jean tapped his shoulder, and signed: _you take the front, I'll take the back_. Sam nodded.

The overlapping sets of footfalls were closing in. Sam shot Jean a thumbs up, got one in return, and attacked.

He got lucky and cut one of them down before they even knew what was happening. But then he had the other three to deal with, and they were strong and they were _pissed_. Sword strikes rained down from all sides and Sam retreated fast. He couldn't keep up, not for more than a few seconds—

A Minotaur head cranked sideways when a human hand grabbed one of his horns. Jean climbed the thing like a tree and plunged a knife into his throat. She rode the collapsing body to the ground, then sprang up again as his partner rounded on her. Her knife carved open his thigh and blood poured. Looked like she'd severed the artery. The Mino collapsed in seconds.

The last one found himself outnumbered and started to backpedal, but he only managed a single step before he suddenly jerked in place once, twice, and keeled over with two arrows in its back.

Clint and Nat were waiting where the dirt path met the main road. Nat beckoned.

"Snakes," Clint said once Sam and Jean had joined them. "Why did it have to be snakes?"

They glared.

"Like I was the only one thinking it."

"We took down five en route," Natasha said, her voice slightly muffled by her filter mask. "With your four, that's thirty left, if Kel's numbers are good."

"I'm more worried about her timing than her numbers," Sam said. "Let's go."

They encountered no more resistance as they jogged past a pasture and more fields. Ahead of them were rows of wood buildings. Beyond those, there was light.

The team crept between buildings until they had a line of sight on the light source. A web of glowing vines was strung between poles that surrounded a squat, square building made out of cinder blocks. This could only be the vibranium vault.

Of greater interest was the group that had gathered nearby. A quick headcount turned up about twenty Minotaurs. There were also some scorpions — four in total — and Sam had _not_  missed these bastards. They were still giant and grey and ugly as hell. They skittered around here and there, tail prongs rattling in agitation.

Kel was in the center of the formation. She hung mostly off her feet between two particularly burly Minos. She looked awful. Her clothes were exactly as torn as could be expected of someone who'd recently gone swimming with snakes that swarmed like piranhas. Her face was bruised almost past recognition, possibly from a combination of snake bites and a beating. Her jacket, prosthesis, and various belts and holsters had all been stripped.

She was being questioned. The conversation was taking place in Mino-language, but Sam didn't have to understand the words to know that Kel was giving them lip. She snarled something particularly impudent, and one of the Minos hauled off and slugged her in the face.

But the critical detail was her hand. The thumb was holding down the little finger.

"Six scorpions left," Clint confirmed. "Four out there, which means two are at large."

It was the Nyth, not the Mjentur, who were the real problem. They were the ones who could activate fun defense features like snake-filled drainage ditches, and if they believed that the garrison was lost, they would destroy it and save themselves. By allowing herself to be captured, Kel was letting the scorpions believe that they had the upper hand until it was too late.

The rest of the team just had to round up the stragglers. Kel had told them where to start looking: the complex of buildings closest to the docks. They left her behind (because that was the plan, no matter how much Sam hated it) and crept their way around the scene, staying out of the light, alert for patrols.

There wasn't much variation in the architecture — they really loved their rectangles in this place — but the Nyth preferred lower roofs and wide, square doorways with no doors. Sam spotted their destination: four buildings arranged in a square, surrounding a fifth.

"Center?" he whispered.

Nat nodded. "Good bet. Everyone ready for this?"

They all gave confirmation.

From behind them came a woman's scream as the interrogation heated up. ( _Not so much damage_ , Kel had called it.)

The team split up and approached the doorway from both sides. There were sounds coming from within: scratches, clicks, rattles.

All eyes went to Nat, who gave the count: _three, two, one_ —

They breached.

There was a giant scorpion and they swarmed it. They'd practiced this. One person had to keep the foreclaws busy and one had to block strikes from the tail, while the rest took shots at the body. It started as a coordinated attack, turned into a frenzy, and ended with the monster in pieces.

After, there was a shaky sort of moment where they all tried to catch their breath. It was hard to tell in the low light, but Jean looked a little pale. Sam guessed that this had been her first dismembering. It had been his, too.

She caught him looking and swiftly pulled herself together. Sam got the message: business first.

The room, now that he had time to look at it, was dominated by what passed for a control panel around here. It was either a short tree or a tall shrub, with an extensive root system and a thick trunk, and it bristled with branches that bore leaves of all different sizes and colors. Somewhere on here was probably the intruder alert. Maybe it could even tell him where the last Nyth was, if he knew how to read it. But he didn't, and the clock was ticking.

"One to go," Nat said. "We sweep the surrounding buildings one by one until we find it."

They formed up and headed out — or would have done, if Scorpion Number Six hadn't appeared right outside the doorway.

It was wearing some sort of metal piece on its tail. The prongs flexed back, and instinct had Sam shouting an alert and diving for cover just before a blast of acid shot out and swept over their heads. The wood where it struck began to smoke, and the gas stung Sam's eyes.

But the filter masks were good. He could still breathe.

" _Down_!" Clint snapped.

Sam was already on the deck. He heard the snap of the bowstring, and an instant later came the sharp _crack_ of an explosion.

He'd never known the scorpions to talk. They communicated with their tails and their pincers, from what he'd seen. But now he could feel a deep grumbling in his bones, a sound just a little too low-frequency to hear, but terribly loud all the same. The scorpion was screaming.

His vision was a blur, and the scorpion — somehow the wrong shape now — was a lighter blur in the center of it. But a blur was good enough. He charged.

And nearly went tumbling when something seized his spear. It was one of the scorpion's massive foreclaws, and it flung him to the side with terrible strength. Sam saw stars as his head clipped the doorway. The spear was wrenched from his grasp, and an instant later he flung himself to the side just in time to avoid a sword strike. The damned scorpion had Minos with it.

Back up, back up, and his eyes were still streaming, he couldn't—

_Fierce_ white-hot pain bit into his side and Sam gave a bellow. He staggered back and felt the creeping warmth as blood soaked into his shirt. There was a shift in the air, and he knew that the Mino was winding up to take his head off.

But in that split second, Sam drew a knife — the balanced one, on loan from Natasha — and threw.

Clint and Nat weren't the only ones who could hit a target. There was a gristly sort of noise, then an alien yell and a clatter of metal on wood as the sword fell from a dead arm. Sam already had a fresh knife in his hand. He lunged from the Mino's vulnerable side, and ended it.

There were no more sounds of hooves or rattles, and nothing else tried to kill him. Sam staggered outside, out of the smoke, and his vision began to clear.

The scorpion was dead. Its abdomen was slashed to bits, and its tail had been blown off. Another five Minos lay dead around it.

Jean had taken a slash on the leg, and she was holding herself stiffly in a way that suggested cracked ribs. Nat, who looked unhurt, was already bandaging the cut.

Sam unzipped his jacket and lifted up his shirt, and oh, _there_ was a mess. He pulled out a field dressing and taped it down. The healers weren't going out of business any time soon. But he was functional.

"Sam, how bad?" Natasha asked without turning around.

"I'll live," he said. "You?"

"I'm good, Clint's good, Jean's only a little worse than she looks."

"Thank you for that," Jean muttered.

From ahead of them, more screaming. Not Kel's voice anymore.

Clint had another explosive arrow nocked. "I'll hold here. Go."

As one, the team kicked up into a hard jog, weapons at the ready. They ran into a cluster of three Minotaurs and made short work of them. In the distance, Sam spotted two Nyth, scuttling toward not Clint and the control room, but the dock. Noncritical. Kel first.

There were two ideas that Sam tried to keep firmly separated in his mind: that Kel's weird alien skin powers were a weapon, and they were also how she ate. Because once those two things were combined, the outcome was… pretty much what he was looking at.

There were two dead scorpions on the ground, and at least fifteen dead Minos. The last one, who only wished he was dead, was on his knees in front of her. She had her hand wrapped around his snout, and her head was thrown back in something like ecstacy. It was the same thing that Sam had watched her do to the bear, way back when.

She drained the Mino's life until his corpse finally fell from her grip. Her head lolled to one side.

Jean stepped out in front of the group. "Kel?" she asked. "Are you with us?"

"Two Nyth." Kel pointed without turning. "They will try to take a boat across the sea. Stop them but be careful of the water. Two Mjentur run away. Those ones are mine."

Her sword, which in retrospect the Minotaurs should have taken a lot further away, lay on the ground between two bloody corpses. Like a little kid, Kel listed sideways and spun a lazy circle as she moved, then swooped down and snatched the hilt of her sword and broke out into a dead run after her… her prey.

Okay. Dealing with that whole entire thing later.

The dock was a simple wooden construction jutting out into the water, with sets of mooring rings on either side. Nat, as the most mobile of the three of them, took a side-trip to collect Clint, while Sam and Jean pressed on ahead.

_Two more, just two more. If I were two giant scorpions who'd just gotten their asses kicked, where would I be?_

Jean nudged him and pointed left. A small boat, about lifeboat-sized, had just come into view.

The scorpions weren't exactly suited for rowing. Sam had no idea how the little boat was moving, but there it was, zipping along the side of the dock en route to open water. He would have worried that it was a decoy, but no, the scorpions' tails were unmistakable and there were two of them.

He sure as hell wasn't jumping in there with them. Luckily, he didn't have to. Grenades were a thing now, thanks to Tony's casings and Jean's gunpowder. Sam and Jean each unclipped one from their belts and picked up the pace as they ran along the dock. They reached the end — the boat was just a few yards away — and together they pulled the pins and—

Movement caught Sam's eye, and he glanced downward. At his feet, a sudden dark shadow had fallen across the very end of the dock.

Or… no, not a shadow. It was something material. And it had appeared not just on the far edge, but also along the two sides. And it was spreading fast.

The moss.

Jean looked down as well. " _Run_!" she yelled.

They dropped the grenades — no time to throw — and turned and bolted. Behind them, two bangs were muffled by water. On both sides of them, the moss advanced. They narrowed to single file, Sam in front. A few more yards, a few more yards…

The safe corridor narrowed from a sidewalk to a balance beam. In a couple of places, the growths on opposite sides began to touch. But the moss wasn't advancing across the dirt. Dry land was safety. Sam took one more step in a bare spot just big enough for a boot, and dived.

Pain, _pain_ , near white-out levels of pain as the wound in his side howled in protest. Sam tucked and rolled and somehow managed not to scream, even as whatever had been torn in his side got torn a whole lot worse.

A second later, he heard Jean hit the ground just to his left, and he heard the strangled noise as she managed to contain her own scream to the back of her throat.

Nat appeared out of nowhere, slit Sam's bootlaces with her knife, and yanked off his boots and flung them into the water. She checked his socks and the lower hems of his trousers carefully, then sat back and gave him a nod. He was clean.

But Jean hadn't gotten so lucky. She lay on her stomach, squirming in pain. Clint had cut open the bottom half of her trouser leg, and a dark patch the size of a thumb stood out against her skin. Sam locked his own pain the fuck away and followed Nat to her side.

"Take care of the boat," Nat ordered Clint, and took his place. "Jean, this is—"

"Just _fucking_ do it."

Sam gripped her leg with both hands, and Nat applied the knife. Jean screamed, and blood flowed, and then it was over. Nat skewered the chunk of flesh with her knife and flipped it into the water. Sam wrapped a pressure bandage around the gouge.

Meanwhile, Clint stood at the edge of shore and took aim, using a variant on the grenade arrow that he and Tony had designed for the giant jaguar. He released the bowstring. The arrow flew up and out in a graceful arc, turned over, and began its descent. The scorpions in the lifeboat never saw it coming. Even from this distance, it was an impressive explosion.

And that was it. They'd done it.

It was going to be a long war. But humanity had just scored its first win.

 


	35. Chapter 35

Jean, in spite of having had a chunk of muscle gouged out of her calf, attempted to hop right back into action. Sam would have had words, except his own injury situation was starting to catch up with him. Luckily, Nat was there to pick up the slack.

"You are not going to search offices, you are not going to inventory grain, you are not going to clear away bodies," she announced. "You are not going to do anything except sit there and clot."

Jean mustered her best unimpressed expression and inquired, "Do your prohibitions include taking evasive action?"

She pointed. They turned.

Sam had been wrong before. The moss _was_ creeping out over dry land — it was just doing it a lot more slowly than it had taken the dock.

"Okay, this stuff is starting to bug me," said Clint.

The two uninjured gathered up the two casualties. Sam told himself that he was prepared for how much standing up was going to hurt, and he absolutely was _not_.

"Jean's not the only one who could use some downtime," Clint said quietly from his position on Sam's good side.

"Not arguing," Sam wheezed. The sword wound wasn't in 'say goodbye to your pancreas' territory, but it had torn some muscles that he needed for things like standing and breathing. In other words, it hurt like a motherfucker.

There weren't a lot of places in the compound where it was healthy to hang around. Kel and Nat had warned of booby-trapped buildings. They weren't going to risk opening the wrong door until Vision and his impervious vibranium body got there. The space around the vault was full of corpses, and obviously they had to avoid the water. They backed off from the shoreline and angled north, away from the control room and the vault, and settled in an empty field that might have been used for training.

Sam scraped the filter mask off his face, then leaned back on his elbows and stared hard at the sky while Clint changed the dressing on his wound. The old bandage was soaked with blood clean through — not a shock, given his recent acrobatics. They'd packed light for the infiltration, and had only the most rudimentary of medical supplies on them. If Sam wanted more than a bandage, he'd have to hold out until either Kel got back or Vision arrived with the rest of their gear.

There were probably better things for them to be doing than lounging in the grass. But a certain post-mission lassitude was setting in. They'd just accomplished something huge. They'd earned a breather.

The silence was eventually broken when Clint said, "So everyone knew that Kel eats people, right? Like, this wasn't a shock or anything?"

"Yeah, I guess I knew it," Sam said. "Still pretty shocking, though. Nat?"

Natasha gave a diffident shrug. "I saw her do it when we first took over the labor camp."

Clint rubbed his fingers together and studied them pensively. "So, for her species, touch means taking food in, right? Which means turning it around to do her healing trick is like—"

"Let's not overstrain the analogy," Nat said, mercifully.

There was a certain shifting of eyelines Jean-ward.

Jean gave a faint sigh, and said, "Direct skin contact allows her to drain the energy out of another living being. She can survive on animals. That's what she's been doing here, and what she did on Earth. However, the more sophisticated the nervous system, the better the meal. For j'Brenithi, feeding from their enemies in combat is standard practice, and greatly increases their endurance."

"I'm thinking we should revisit that whole 'mission briefings need to cover all relevant information' issue," Clint said. "Apparently there's still a few kinks in the system."

"You just said you knew."

"Yeah, from context, not—"

But they were interrupted when Vision, with a certain dramatic flair, descended from the sky and landed in their midst.

"Good morning," he said.

Nat, ever unimpressed, remarked, "You're early."

"Yes. I… became concerned over your progress." His gaze took in their respective states. "Perhaps such concern was not unwarranted."

Now that was a little harsh. "Hey, considering the odds we were facing, I'd say we did pretty damn good," Sam said.

Vision looked abashed. "Of course. I only meant that, whatever qualms I might have had concerning the objective, my lack of involvement put the rest of you in greater jeopardy."

"Personally, I don't complain when an individual with the power to wipe out entire settlements is sparing in their use of that power," Jean said. "And there's considerably more war still ahead of us. Where did you leave the horses?"

"Tethered just beyond the main gate," Vision replied. "It seems that medical supplies are required. Shall I bring them?"

"Clint will get the horses and the gear," Nat said. "I have some more urgent jobs for you. You two, stay put," she added to Sam and Jean.

Clint muttered something about not having signed up to be the gopher, but he climbed to his feet and set off on his errand. Meanwhile, Natasha led Vision to the water's edge. Their brief conversation was inaudible, but there was only one thing she could have been asking him to do.

Sure enough, Vision lifted into the air and used his energy beam to zap the shore. He scoured it free of the encroaching moss, then floated out over the water where the dock had stood and continued firing on the shallows of the seabed, back and forth until the water frothed and steamed.

Nat then directed his attention to the perimeter of the compound, where there was still a drainage ditch full of snakes. Vision flew up and over the boundary fence, and returned with two torso-sized boulders that he used to block the channels where the water flowed in from the sea. The water level in the ditch began to drop immediately, and Vision finished the job with his beam, taking flight again and making a complete circuit of the perimeter.

"You sure you got all the moss?" Sam asked when he got back.

"I assure you, no plant life of any kind remains," Vision said.

"Good. Long as you're sure." There was no such thing as over-zapping where that stuff was concerned.

The garrison was close to a mile long, so it was a while before Clint reappeared, riding one of the horses and leading the other. He dismounted, and he and Nat handed round everyone's packs. Empathic healers were state-of-the-art as far as pain relief was concerned, but since Kel was still off playing with her food, Sam made do with human drugs. He changed shirts with gritted teeth and waited for the local to kick in.

What he didn't have were spare boots. He sure as hell wasn't walking back to camp in his socks. Damned moss.

Jean also knocked back some painkillers and let Natasha clean and rebandage the slash on her thigh and the gouge in her calf. Vision zipped out into the forest and came back with a sturdy branch in the shape of a crutch. Break time was over.

There was only so much that the small team of them could do. What they really needed was to bring in work crews from the camp. But everyone was curious to see just what they'd acquired. All of them except Vision put on fresh filter masks, just in case, and together they set out on a tour.

They started back at the low-security end of the compound. Natasha warned that the stable had an independent security system, and sure enough, Vision made it two steps in before he was swarmed by a tangle of vine-snakes. Luckily, all they did was blunt their teeth on his vibranium ankles. He zapped a bunch of times until they were cleared out.

Inside the stable were several rows of stalls where Harolds and Flopsies and Mopsies were dozing. There had to be extra wagons around somewhere, as well. That acquisition alone made the op worthwhile. Jean produced pencil and paper and stopped to take some notes.

The boost to their transport capacity was a huge plus, and so were the grain fields. There were a couple different species of grain, at different stages of growth. Team Humanity wasn't going to be able to hold the garrison long enough to harvest the seedlings, but the full-grown stuff looked like it would supply the camp for a couple of months, plus the Minotaurs could have more in storage somewhere. Which was not to knock the farming efforts at the beta site, of course — Sam had escorted a lumber shipment out there just a few weeks ago, and the plant ladies were doing a great job — but it was always better to have a safety margin.

The next stop on the tour was a lot more grim. The Minotaurs' barracks buildings were somewhat larger than the ones at the labor camp, but the design was still unmistakeable.

Jean grasped the nearest doorknob, and paused. Sam stepped forward quickly, and put his hand over hers.

"We all know what's in there," he said. "You don't have to do this."

Her eyes were heavy with emotion. "Yes, I do," she said, and opened the door.

There was no smell, thanks to the masks. It was just as well. The Minotaurs inside — about thirty in all — had had enough time to suffer before they died. Sam didn't need to catalog the symptoms. He knew what nerve gases did.

He and Jean stood silently in the doorway for a long moment.

"You know what they would have done to us, right?" Sam said quietly.

"Worked us to death in the mines," Jean replied. "Yes."

"No one can say you're ducking the consequences." Sam touched her shoulder. "But you don't have to torture yourself over it. Let's get out of here, all right?"

It took her some time. But eventually she stepped away again.

"Kel informs me that the toxin breaks down after a few hours," she said. The muffling of the mask didn't quite cover the roughness of her voice. "Allowing fresh air to circulate will—"

"We're on it, Boss-Lady," Clint said.

He and Nat took the remaining doors, while the rest of the group moved on. They'd brought a large supply of spiky green corpse-dissolving balls, safe and inert in dehydrated pod form. Someone would have to go on distribution duty eventually, but it could wait.

The next couple of buildings turned out to be offices, unsecured and uninteresting. Sam was holding out for a look at the armory, but they hadn't run into it yet. Beyond the offices was the well-lit area surrounding the vibranium vault.

The door to the vault was massive. It had a spoked metal wheel in the center, and a few more indentations at different heights that had to have something to do with the locking mechanism. The whole contraption looked heavy enough that even a Minotaur would have had trouble moving it.

Vision, of course, wouldn't even blink. He dug his fingers into the frame—

"Don't," Kel said, stepping out of the shadows. "If you force the door, it will spray acid and _rrzhtik-che_. Destroy flesh and weapons."

There wasn't a mark on her (besides the ones she'd started with). Her clothes were still a mess, but she'd healed all the damage to her body.

Vision backed off. "A reasonable precaution," he said. "Do you have an alternative?"

"Only the Nyth can open the door," she said. "It's a biological code, recognizes their species only." She ran her hand carefully along a row of cinder blocks. "Away from the door, I think it's safe to move the stone. The inside is made of vibranium on all sides. Can't punch through it, of course, but could maybe burn through it."

"Or shatter it with this magic dust you keep going on about," Clint said.

"Maybe. If we find any. If we have to. But it's rare enough that I want to keep it for emergencies."

"Tony will have some ideas," Nat said. "We'll bring him out here and let him play."

"I assume you got the last two Minos?" Sam asked.

"Yes," said Kel. "Dead."

She and Jean met eyes, and held a brief, silent conversation. Sam could pick the subtext out of the air: Kel's query of, _Can I check your injuries?_ and Jean's response of, _Sam first_.

Kel obligingly shifted focus, and her eyes flicked down to Sam's torso. "You took a bad wound," she said. "I can fix it. Or do you prefer to wait for Aaron?"

Aaron, who Sam _did_ prefer, all things considered, was days away, and pretty soon the pain would be back with reinforcements. "I wouldn't turn down the help," he said. "Thanks."

Kel collected her pack from the horses. The office buildings had the advantage of being free of both traps and corpses, and they chose the nearest for a temporary infirmary. She swept a bunch of paperwork off a desk, and helped Sam lie down.

Sam had watched her do her thing to other people a couple times, but this was the first time she'd done it to him. Steve and Clint had both described the process as _weird_ , which left quite a bit to the imagination.

Kel had the bedside manner down pretty good. A light touch on his ribs sent the pain melting away. She washed up thoroughly, then peeled back the bandage and cleaned out the wound, explaining and checking in with him as she worked. Then she settled her fingertips lightly against his skin.

It felt like an invisible hand reached up from somewhere inside his guts and started pinching the wound closed from below, inch by inch, if something like that could happen and also not hurt, as such. Sam closed his eyes and focused on his breathing, and _definitely_ tried not to think about the other things her hand could do.

The process took several minutes. Sam opened his eyes when the pressure began to ease, and found a thin line of scar tissue where the gash had been.

It was a hell of a trick.

Kel cleaned the last traces of blood off his side with a damp cloth, then stepped away and began to pack up her supplies.

"You can sit up when you're ready," she said. "The muscles will be a little tender."

Sam did so, carefully. There was a twinge like an old bruise, but that was all. He ran his fingers along the skin around the scar, and… felt like his. So far, so good. He tugged his shirt back down and picked up his jacket.

"How does it feel?" she asked.

"A hell of a lot better than it did," Sam said. "Thanks."

"Of course."

Kel's clothing was covered in bloody punctures from her swim with the sea snakes, plus bonus bloodstains from whatever the Minos had done to her. Even with a guarantee of no permanent damage, not a lot of people would have volunteered for something like that.

And also she ate people. It would have been easier if she could have just picked one — creepy _or_ admirable, not both at once.

"I've been meaning to ask," Sam said, "how are you doing? I know your part of the op got rough."

Kel plucked at a couple of the holes in her shirt, and pulled a face. "The socks annoyed."

"Snakes," Sam said, although he was pretty sure that she used the wrong names on purpose for things that pissed her off. "And that interrogation couldn't have been a walk in the park, either."

"I let them think they hurt me," she said, and flicked her fingers dismissively. "Take their revenge for the ones I killed. Part of the distraction, but this is all." Then her expression turned wry. "It bothers you." She made a grasping gesture, not directed at him. "Yes?"

"Hey, you stuck your neck way out for us, and not for the first time," Sam said. "I'm grateful. We all are." But her expression didn't change, and after a moment he gave a sigh. "But yeah. Maybe it bothers me."

"It's all right. Jean doesn't like it, either."

It was another question that Sam wasn't sure he wanted an answer to, but couldn't ignore. "Have you ever…" He gestured back and forth between them.

"Fed from a human?" Kel said. "I carry human blood, and it is strongly forbidden to feed from our own kind. Humans are my kind, too, I think. So no, I never did this, and I wouldn't. Tor would, though, or any other Brenith. Usually we aren't interested in lives besides our own."

"So, if we go home with you and diplomacy goes badly…"

"I won't bring you unless we find enough to trade for your lives."

"But if you guess wrong?"

"I won't," she said. "I know these are only words, but if you come with me, you'll have to trust that I know how to keep you safe."

It wasn't Kel's fault. What else could she possibly say? But this was a very slender thread they were being asked to hang their lives from. The debate was so familiar that it had practically worn grooves on the inside of his skull, and Sam still didn't know what he was going to do. As usual, he reminded himself that the decision was still six months and one war away, and he had more important things to focus on.

He left the office, and Jean took his place. Clint, Nat and Vision had started rehydrating and distributing the corpse-recyclers, and Sam joined in.

When Jean and Kel returned about ten minutes later, Jean was walking on two feet again, but she looked exhausted and withdrawn. And that was fair. She wasn't a soldier. This was only her second combat mission, and what they'd just done was on a completely different scale from the camp takeover. Now that the immediate danger was past, she had a lot of processing to do.

Kel requested everyone's attention. "If this is my mission still," she said, "then this is my last order. It was a long day and a long night. This place is safe. Everyone find somewhere to rest."

"I like where your head's at," Clint said, "but I could do with fewer decomposing corpses this close to where I'm trying to nap."

Kel gestured at the bucket of spikeballs. "I'll finish this."

"You don't need rest?"

"No," she said with a shrug. "I just ate. Vision, you can go back to camp and let Steve know we were successful. I think he'll want to see, and it would be helpful, like Natasha said, for Tony to come here and look at the vault." Kel glanced at Jean for confirmation. "We'll need more people here eventually, but for now I think we start slow."

"Agreed," Jean said. "Just the two of them, until we've explored this place more thoroughly." She glanced down at her socks. "And please ask them to bring some spare boots."

Vision gave his assent and departed.

Jean and Kel had another of their brief, wordless conversations.

"Go ahead and find somewhere to settle," Jean said to the rest of the group. "I'll be along presently." Then she fell in alongside Kel, and the two of them took a slow stroll out toward the main road.

Sam had no objection to getting some rest. The only question was where. Any place by the barracks was obviously out, and no matter how much zapping Vision might have done, Sam didn't entirely trust the shore. The group of them grabbed the horses and swung north again, heading back toward the stable.

Inside, the livestock were starting to get restless, so Clint and Nat let them into the pasture and put out some trays of feed. (Sam, still bootless, sat that one out.) Behind the barn was some space that made an okay campsite, and the three of them set up their bedrolls.

Clint, with the ease of a career soldier, put his head down and fell asleep within moments. Natasha likewise seemed to doze off. But Sam lay awake, looking up at the sky. It was later than he'd thought. Across the water, without the forest to block the view, the first glimmers of dawn could be seen on the horizon. And Jean and Kel still hadn't reappeared.

He waited for as long as he could stand it. Then he set out to look for them.

The main road was as good a place as any to start. Sam turned east, on a course that would take him past the barn and the pasture beside it.

"I wouldn't," Natasha said as he reached the end of the pasture fence. "If one of us shows up, Jean will lock it all down again."

Sam had to stop and have a heart attack before he could process what she'd actually said. " _What_ —" he sputtered. "How did you—"

She waited him out, casually leaning up against the fence like she'd been there all day.

Even if he got the question out, Sam knew he wasn't going to get an answer. Natasha had a certain… Natasha-ness that simply had to be accepted. "Okay, I see your point," he finally admitted. "But given her background, I'm not sure Kel really gets what Jean's going through."

"She does," Natasha said. "Maybe not bone-deep, but she's teaching herself how to have the emotions at the same time as she's teaching Jean how to handle them. They'll meet in the middle. They've had some practice." She looked him up and down quickly. "How are you doing?"

"Her healer trick lived up to the hype," Sam said.

That wasn't what she'd meant, and they both knew it. Nat didn't do anything so clumsy as say so, however. She just waited some more until Sam sighed and looked away.

"I'm okay with my part. A little less okay with..." He hooked a thumb in the direction of the barracks and the massacre within.

"Would it have been better if she'd slit their throats one by one, for that personal touch?"

"No, of course not. I don't know what else we could have done, given our numbers." The image of the dead in that building rose before his eyes. Unfair and ungrateful of him, he knew, to judge Kel for doing what had to be done. He just wished it had been a tiny bit harder. That she'd flinched, if only for a second. "It's not so much her I'm worried about," Sam said. "It's the society that built her. They don't recognize civilians, I'll bet you anything they don't recognize war crimes, and the way she tells it, they don't even recognize personhood for any race besides their own."

"Rethinking your exit strategy?" Natasha asked.

"I'm just saying, even if the plan does work out, I'm not sure her folks are the sort of people I want to owe."

It was the tiniest change in expression — just a slight downward flick of the eyelids, almost invisible in the dawn light — but Natasha would only do something like that deliberately.

"How about you?" he asked. "What's your take on all this?"

"It's a difficult problem," she said. "If Kel's plan works, it might have fewer risks overall, but I don't like the fact that we have only her assessments and no independent confirmation." She paused, and gave a slight, calculated shrug. "As for tonight, I've done worse things for worse reasons."

And that was when Sam realized just how badly he'd screwed up. Because Natasha's background was about as close to Kel's as a human could experience and survive. She too had been built from early childhood to be a weapon — to infiltrate and kill with the same cold efficiency. Every qualm he had, every piece of moralistic high ground he was trying to claim, was as good as a slap in the face.

Shit.

His face had gone hot. "God, Nat, I don't mean—"

"I know you don't," she said, with more grace than he deserved. "I was just wondering when you'd notice."

"I'm sorry."

"Do you remember the very first time we discussed the Accords?" she asked. "Steve said, 'the safest hands are still our own.' It makes sense when guys like you and him say something like that. But some of us have hands that weren't always safe." She flashed him a tiny smile, gone in a heartbeat. "It changes things a little, don't you think?"

He understood her point, but he couldn't let it stand uncontested. "When you dumped SHIELD's database online, I know a whole lot of your own history went with it," Sam said. "I never read the files. Don't want to, don't need to. Your hands look plenty safe to me."

Her smile that time was warmer, and reached her eyes. "Enough chit-chat, Wilson. We better scram or we're going to miss bed check."

Sam grinned back, and they scrammed.

 

* * *

 

It was the morning of the fifth day of the garrison mission. There was a chance they'd hear from Vision that day, but also a chance that they wouldn't. Since Tony had insufficient data to estimate the odds, he was stuck in twitchy probabilistic limbo.

He wasn't _nervous_ or anything. Not because a team of six was taking on a heavily fortified enemy stronghold. Avengers ate that kind of thing for breakfast. And he wasn't antsy over Kel having been gone long enough to miss a SHED talk, because for fuck's sake he wasn't _that_  needy.

And even though Jean and Kel, in spite of punishing training schedules of their own, had still made time to work out with him, just the three of them, and in their absence he'd had no source of physical contact and it was kind of driving him out of his skin… even though that was true, he wasn't, like, _stressed_ about it or anything. He was fine, they were fine, he just had to wait for word.

It was too early for breakfast, but Tony was up anyway, and he had no idea what to do with himself. He wandered around the corner of his dormitory, mentally flicking through some blast radius calculations that needed to be checked, when Steve suddenly popped up in front of him.

All in a rush, with the air of something that had been rehearsed to excess, Steve said, "Hi Tony, do you maybe want to go for a run with me?"

Tony blinked a couple times as _what?_ and _hell, no_ duked it out in his head. The compromise that came out of his mouth was, "Why?"

"I guess I'm going a little stir-crazy, being stuck here and not knowing what's happening on the mission," Steve said. "I could use the distraction, and the company. Believe me, I'm not setting any track and field records these days," he added quickly. "I'm only up to five laps, and they're pretty slow."

So, 'no' was the obvious answer here, right? _No, because this looks an awful lot like pushing, because I haven't forgiven you, because you can't just jump back into acting like we're friends when we're not, because…_ But he just couldn't get the word to form. Steve's face had fallen in the time Tony had taken to think things over, and now he was looking at him with this… this mopey sort of resignation, like he'd already catalogued all the different ways that Tony could refuse, and he was just waiting for him to pick one.

It wasn't even like kicking a puppy — it was like the puppy had arrived pre-kicked.

"This is strictly a no-talking run," Tony said.

Steve's eyes widened in surprise for a second before he caught himself. "No problem."

"Fine."

Steve hadn't been kidding. Tony let him set the pace, and it was moderate. Running wasn't Tony's favorite form of cardio, but he'd have no trouble with this at all.

And the mundanity of it was brutal. When Steve had been convalescing, it had been easier to reconcile. His injuries needed time to heal — of course he was physically weakened. But now time had been and gone, and Steve was healthy again… and this was what healthy looked like.

They ran in silence, as agreed. The physical exertion was distracting enough, and Tony let himself get lost in his breathing and the rhythm of his strides.

The loop around the camp perimeter was three quarters of a mile, give or take. Steve's pace was flagging noticeably by the fourth circuit, and the fifth ended with him panting for breath with his hands on his knees.

They'd had the good sense to leave water at their starting point. Tony handed Steve's canteen over, and took a long pull from his own. Steve caught enough of his breath to straighten up and take a drink.

He caught Tony's expression, and grimaced. "Like I said."

"Yeah." Tony didn't want to make a _thing_ out of this, but he also didn't want Steve to fall over or something. He took a seat in the shade of one of the perimeter trees, and after a moment, Steve followed suit. "Do the healer types think this is permanent?" he asked.

"They're not sure," Steve said, "but they can't fix it here. They don't even have the tools to understand it completely, let alone undo it."

"But the scorpions must have some kind of scientific equipment," Tony said. "They invented this thing, and they did it pretty damned fast. At a minimum, they've got to have microscopes, centrifuges, incubators—"

"Not really my department." Steve tried and failed to give a casual shrug. "I'm just the guinea pig."

Tony wanted to say something, if he could have found the right thing to say. But commenting on Steve's ordeal seemed a little too advanced for their current status of tentatively not yelling at each other.

At least, commenting on it directly was out of the question. There was a piece of the aftermath that would have to be mentioned sooner or later, and it seemed like the door had been opened. "Speaking of… that," Tony said ( _brilliant_ segue), "here's something you should probably… Uh, you may not have noticed, being unconscious at all, but I was there when the rescue team first brought you back. Everyone was pretty chewed up, Kel included, and the infirmary was short-staffed, so I… kind of… helped operate on you. Assisted."

It was not one of his prouder memories. Tony had swabbed and clamped and suctioned as ordered, and when it was over, he'd rushed outside and puked his guts out. Engineering, as a rule, had far less gore in it.

"No," Steve said quietly. "I didn't know. Thank you."

He tried to bat the thanks away. "Strictly unskilled labor. Aaron did all the real work."

"That doesn't matter. I appreciate it." Steve frowned slightly — not out of displeasure, Tony thought, but from the effort of searching his recollection. "I think I remember you talking to me while I was in recovery. Did that happen?"

"Yeah, I took a few shifts. Again — short-staffed, your people were still out of it, Aaron didn't want you left alone… I'm sure I'm not the one you would have wanted there, but—"

"Tony, could you please just let me thank you?"

"You—" He stopped. Acknowledged the feelings of defensiveness; separated them from the choice to react defensively. "You're welcome," he muttered. "Anyway. Since it was a piece of information that directly impacted you, I figured you had a right to know."

(Okay, so he was still carrying around some anger.)

Steve looked down. "I'm pretty sure the twenty-first-century response is, 'I see what you did there.' And I guess it's fair. Thanks for the run, Tony. Maybe we can do it again sometime." And he began to stand up.

"Seriously, that's it?" Tony said. "No self-righteous riposte?"

"Is that what—" But Steve, too, was stopping himself that day. "You told me not to push."

_Dammit_. "I did," Tony acknowledged. "And you haven't. Mostly."

Steve spread his hands. "If that's what it takes to convince you that I want to fix things, then… I'm trying."

He was, too. Tony was the only one presently being an asshole, and he found that it offered no satisfaction. "Yeah," he said, mostly to the ground in front of him. "Sorry. For the cheap shot. And, uh, without necessarily tackling the broader issues… we can do this again." He twirled his finger in a circle, indicating the perimeter loop. "If you want."

"I'd like that."

There — danger averted, interaction complete. They dusted themselves off and went their separate ways.

"Tony, can I ask you a personal question?"

…Almost.

Tony stopped, turned, glared. "Do you _really_ think we're ready for personal questions?"

"No, probably not," Steve admitted, "but you're the only one who…" He trailed off. His face was going red, but whatever the hell this was about, Tony could see him steeling himself to see it through. "You and Kel," he said. "You… talk, sometimes. Right?"

Every single alarm bell in his head went off simultaneously. "I talk to a lot of people," Tony said tightly.

"Okay, but I mean… you and she meet specifically to talk about… problems. Like therapy, sort of."

"What the _fuck_ is your point?"

Steve quickly raised his hands. "No, I'm not… I just… does it help?"

Tony could have fended off any kind of slight or jibe. Could have cheerfully told Rogers to go fuck himself in response to all manner of ham-handed or ignorant remarks. But this wide-eyed blend of fear and cautious hope? He had no defense for this. He'd thought that watching Captain America gasp for breath after a four-mile jog was a shocking display of vulnerability. But Steve had just reset the scale.

It was a moment that could go one of two very different ways.

"If it didn't help, I wouldn't keep doing it," he said, as evenly as he could manage. "And I reiterate, what is your point?"

Steve was still having trouble with complete sentences. "It's just… um. A couple people have said that I should… maybe not here, but when we get back… that I should try it. Talking to someone. And you're… so I thought maybe I could ask."

_'Maybe.' Like you didn't set up the whole 'jogging buddies' routine for exactly this reason._ Tony felt a little scammed and more than a little ambushed… but he was also, however begrudgingly, sympathetic.

"It's an individual thing," he said. "Needs the right fit and so forth. But in this instance… yeah, she's helped me level out. Case in point: this conversation."

"And I guess it involves talking about personal things. Out loud."

"Well, she's not a telepath. And I don't think any of the telepaths are in this line of work."

"How do…" But then he stopped and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "You probably want me to drop this."

Tony rolled his eyes. " _Christ_ , Rogers, it's a bit late now. Spit it out, already."

"I'm just… trying to work out how you get to the point where you can trust someone like that."

They were getting into some _seriously_ dicy territory. Tony felt like each word was stripping off a layer of his skin. "A ways back, she caught me in a bad moment," he said. "Accidental, not my idea. And she just… took it in stride." That night was still a very fragile piece of him — the breakdown, and the way that Kel had seen him through it. "She helped, and she was never once, then or since, unkind about it. That was one part, and the other part was admitting that trying to hold it together on my own wasn't good enough. There are people depending on me. I had to do better at getting better."

That was it. That was all he could bear. And Steve, by some miracle, seemed to realize it.

"Thanks," he said. "And… sorry. That probably counted as pushing."

"You think?"

Steve gave a quiet chuckle. "Don't worry, I'll keep out of your way for a while."

That sounded like an _excellent_ plan… but then Tony glimpsed motion out by the east road. "Then again," he said, "there might be one more thing we need to discuss today."

Vision was back.

 

* * *

 

The walk east was quiet, not that Steve was surprised. Tony made it very clear that he needed some space, and Vision didn't feel the need to fill conversational gaps. For two days, Steve was pretty sure that none of them spoke more than two sentences at a time.

Not that he was complaining. He was still astonished that… well, he hardly knew where to begin: that he'd asked the question, that Tony had answered, that they'd gotten through a sensitive conversation without attacking each other. If a few days of chilly silence was the price to pay, he knew he was getting off cheap.

Vision had briefed them before they'd left camp, of course. The mission to take control of the enemy garrison had been a complete success, with only minor injuries. The rest of the team was inventorying the supplies and equipment they'd acquired, and working on the logistics of moving everything back to camp and ultimately to the beta site.

On the evening of the second day, just as they were making camp for the night, Kel came cantering down the road on one of the winged lizard-horses, leading two more.

"I'll bring them the rest of the way," she told Vision. "You can do more at the garrison."

So Vision departed, carrying a pack of supplies that included two new pairs of boots, and Kel took over escort duty. She was able to give them a few more details about the attack (a startling number of which involved snakes).

"You're sure you're all right?" Tony asked her after she'd explained about the swarm that guarded the shoreline.

"It was painful," she said, with no apparent concern. "Not something I would do for fun. Not something that was a serious problem."

Riding was easier than walking, and a lot faster. With clear weather and no predator attacks, they reached their destination less than two days later.

The garrison, like the camp, was surrounded by a barrier. The road led between two tall wooden posts, each lined with the black discs that produced the threads. Natasha and Sam were waiting on the other side to let them in.

The new arrivals dismounted. While everyone else exchanged greetings, Kel retrieved the long leads she'd used on the solo leg of her trip, and clipped them to two of the horses' bridles.

Natasha turned to Sam, and gave a particular sort of smile.

Sam rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, I got the horses."

" _Someone_ has to catch up on his fair share of livestock duty," Nat explained in response to Steve's curious look.

"The damned moss ate my boots!" Sam protested.

"And now you have new ones. So you can get the horses."

"This side of the Avenger lifestyle wasn't in the brochures," Sam muttered. He mounted Kel's horse, and she handed him the two leads. "Steve, we'll catch up this evening, all right?"

"Sure thing," Steve said.

Sam departed, and the rest of the group continued on foot. To Steve's right were square fields of grain, bounded by narrow pathways. To his left, the same — except one of the plots no longer held plants, but what looked like the aftermath of a brushfire. The ground was charred, and what might once have been crops were now just piles of ash.

Kel stopped dead and stared at it. "Didn't I tell you not to dig?" she asked.

"Yes," Natasha said.

"What happened?"

"We dug."

"And?"

"The field caught fire. Interesting fact," she added to Steve and Tony. "The scorpions build self-destruct mechanisms into their military bases. There's a system of roots beneath the complex, and some of them don't like to be disturbed. So don't dig."

"We'll keep it in mind," Steve said.

"Under normal circumstances, Tony, I would aim you at the control room," she continued, "but this is one computer that might give you trouble. It's a bush."

"It's a…"

"Bush. Or arguably a small tree. Some manner of shrubbery. Sometimes the leaves change color."

Tony rubbed his forehead. "I hate this planet. All right, we'll leave the… the tree-computer for later. Vision mentioned something about a vault?"

"That's right," she said. "You'll like it — it's pure vibranium. We're hoping you can get us inside without setting off any traps or dipping into our tiny supply of anti-vibranium dust."

He eyed her skeptically. "You mean you actually found some of this supposed…"

" _Rrzhtik-che_ ," Kel supplied. "Yes, a little. Maybe not even enough to get through the wall — I'm not sure. Much better if you can open it another way."

"I'll take a look."

They were walking down a wide, hard-packed dirt road. It led them past more grain fields, a fenced-in area where horses and oxen glittered in the sunlight, and a barn where Sam was presumably breaking in his new boots. The only other structures in this half of the complex were small and shed-like.

About ten minutes of walking brought them to the end of the agricultural sector. The central road continued past rows of wooden buildings, one and two stories tall and somewhat larger than the ones back at the labor camp, but of the same stark, rectangular design. Kel and Tony split off to go look at the vault. Natasha directed Steve to keep to the road, and made a brief side trip to collect Jean from one of the buildings.

Together, they followed the road until it ended and the sea began. The beach, such as it was, consisted of bare dirt and a short, rocky embankment.

Clint stood with crossed arms at the water's edge, staring out into the distance. In lieu of a greeting, and without turning his head, he said, "Rule of thumb: someone my height, looking out over level ground on a clear day, can see for about three miles before the Earth's curvature blocks line of sight." His eyes narrowed slightly. "It's shorter here. More like two miles. Which makes this planet a lot smaller — maybe half the size of Earth. Weird, right?"

Steve was prepared to grant that it was weird, but he wasn't sure what the point was.

"I take it that whatever you saw hasn't returned," Jean said.

"Nope," Clint said, and finally turned away from the water. "We know they grow 'em big here. It could have been a really big fish. Hey, Cap."

"Hey," he said, with the wrong-footed feeling of someone who'd walked in at the end of the conversation.

Natasha said, "But it could also have been some sort of signalling mechanism."

"Hell, their signalling mechanism could be a really big fish," Clint said. "No way to know."

Jean said to Steve, "It should be emphasized that Kel can only relay plans as they were discussed before the labor camp became operational. Much of this is conjecture. But she is under the impression that the Nyth send a ship here from their settlement across the sea every five months. It conveys a security contingent, plus any new Mjentur rotating in. They collect the accumulated vibranium and return, along with personnel rotating out."

"And you're wondering when the next one is due," Steve said.

"Exactly. You'll recall that we would have expected forty replacement guards to accompany the next supply delivery to the labor camp. The new shift and the old would have overlapped for five days, then the old shift would have gone back to the garrison along with this month's shipment of vibranium. Kel believes that the Nyth ship will get here at the same time as that departing shift would have, about a month from now."

"On the other hand," Natasha countered, "if the new guards are coming in fresh from overseas, then the ship is due in less than two weeks."

"Or there could be other ships or signals or whatever that Kel was never in on," Clint added. "For all we know, we've missed a check-in already."

A critical piece of their strategy was to ensure that the Nyth settlement remained ignorant of their rebellion for as long as possible, then to delay retaliation even longer by sending Vision to destroy their fleet. Steve could see both arguments: it was possible that nothing would appear amiss for another month, or it was possible that their cover was already blown. They had to prepare for both contingencies.

"We need to get Vision into position as soon as possible," he said.

"That was my conclusion as well," said Jean. "If it were anyone else, this would be unthinkable even to ask, but…"

But this was Vision, who — among other useful traits — didn't need to eat, sleep, or breathe, and who didn't seem to have a problem with boredom, either. He could spend the entire month at the bottom of the sea if he had to, waiting for signs that the enemy fleet was about to depart. In fact, Steve was a little surprised that Jean hadn't dispatched him already.

"Risk assessments involving Vision are unique," he acknowledged. "We'll make it clear that the job is volunteer-only, and see what he says."

"Agreed."

Steve didn't have Clint's eyesight, but he found himself gazing out across the water even so. It was late afternoon; the sun was at their backs, and the shadows from the forest were slowly creeping up from behind. Whether he could see for three miles or two, he had no idea — there was just the rippling blue of the water, stretching forward until it met the darkening blue of the sky.

Still so much to do. This place had to be stripped of everything they could use, and rigged with traps for the inevitable enemy incursion. The beta site had to be completed, the civilians transplanted there. Defensive plans that still existed only in the form of brainstorming sessions and hypotheticals had to be rendered concrete and set into motion. They had to fight a war, and win, and get everybody home.

Steve would have given anything to be at full strength again. Would have endured any treatment, any procedure, however temporary. The people here — all those innocent lives — deserved better from him than they were going to get.

But at least they were going to get everything he had left.

He turned away from the sea, back to his team. "What's the count?" he asked Jean — not because he didn't know it, but because it had been in her custody for a long time and deserved to remain there.

"One hundred seventy days," Jean replied.

"Then we'd better get back to work."

 


	36. Chapter 36

Tony barely had time to get acquainted with the vibranium vault before he and Kel were summoned back to a group strategy meeting. (The vault, being made of vibranium and believed to contain more vibranium, was something he planned to become very well acquainted with indeed.)

His presence at the meeting wasn't even necessary, though he had to admit he would have been annoyed to be left out. The focus was on Vision and his imminent sea crossing. Jean laid out the situation: if the scorpions didn't know there was a problem, then the team didn't want to blow their cover. On the other hand, if they _did_ know there was a problem, then Vision had to be ready to destroy their fleet of ships as soon as possible. From this side, there was no way to tell what the timeline was. Vision was being asked to fly across the sea, alone, and hide out for as long as it took — perhaps a month or more — until a launch was underway.

"This should pose no significant difficulties," Vision said. "Based on the maps we found, I estimate it will take me seven hours to cross the water, plus whatever time is required to locate the settlement. If I leave now, I can be in position before sunrise."

Jean looked like she'd been gearing up for a negotiation that hadn't materialized. "And it's clear that you'll be out of communication for as long as you remain?" she said. "We won't be able to back you up, and we won't know if you encounter any problems."

"I assure you, I fully comprehend the parameters," he replied.

"All right," Jean said. "We expect a ship to come for the vibranium some time in the next month. Let it pass — we'll deal with it on this end. Some warning would be nice if at all possible, but don't jeopardize your cover. Once you've seen how fast the transport sails, obviously you'll be able to estimate when it's expected back. After it fails to arrive, the Nyth might not launch a large-scale assault immediately. My opinion — and Steve, please weigh in on this — is that if the follow-up is small, perhaps one or two vessels, we can handle it ourselves."

"Tony, you said you have explosives powerful enough to sink ships, right?" Steve asked.

"Well, we don't have the firepower to take on a modern-day warship," Tony said, "but if we're talking wooden construction, _Pirates of the Caribbean_ sort of things? Yeah, not a problem."

"Then I agree," said Steve. "We don't need to reveal the full extent of our offensive capabilities over a relatively small reconnaissance team."

"Then warn us if possible but don't reveal your presence," Jean continued to Vision. "It's activity en masse that you have to stop at all costs."

"I understand," he said. "Are there any other instructions?"

"No, I think that covers it."

"Then I shall depart immediately."

For Vision, 'immediately' meant _immediately_. He floated up into the air, made a graceful turn, and set out across the water.

By then it was getting dark. Jean suggested that they break for dinner. The sea air made this location a bit chilly for dining al fresco; they ate indoors, in two adjacent offices whose shared wall Vision had knocked down. Over their traditional white and green mush (Tony just… hated every piece of this planet), the garrison team filled in the newcomers on some of the very exciting inventorying they'd done.

Which was not to knock the work, of course. They needed to know what they had before they could decide how to move it. But there was only so much narrative milage to be gotten from Northeast Storage Shed Number Two: Miscellaneous Carpentry Supplies.

Then Jean asked how things were going back at the camp. Steve assured her that, to the best of his knowledge, they hadn't descended into anarchy in her absence. Yes, Tavleen had made a general announcement before he and Tony had left; yes, morale remained high, especially now that there was no reason to continue the mining shifts; yes, the team escorting the most recent convoy to the beta site had returned on schedule and reported that everything was still secure.

Tony didn't have much to add after that, but he threw in some updated timetables for landmine manufacture, just for kicks. He and Alisha had been running critically low on some of their chemical supplies, but there had to be a Northeast Storage Shed Something-or-other that would fill his shopping list.

So the meal passed with something akin to camaraderie. Kel was the only absentee, which was typical when human-style eating went on. Tony wanted to catch up with her in private some time soon — _not_ to ask for hand-holding over the whole Rogers situation, but to see how the prosthetics he'd sent with her were standing up to daily use, and things like that. It looked like it would have to wait until morning, though. He had something more pressing on his agenda.

The Minotaurs had dormitories, but no one was using them. Given how they'd come to be emptied… Tony understood. Instead, the two office buildings had been converted into residences. Jean gave Tony and Steve the rundown of where everyone was, then showed them to their own rooms, on opposite sides of the corridor in the second building. Each one was still blatantly an office, with a cot awkwardly squished against the wall behind the desk. The traditional vine-light ringed the skylight and ran its root system down the wall, and the traditional pitchers of on- and off-fluid sat next to the bed.

"No turndown service?" Tony said.

" _Thank_ you," Steve said pointedly. "This will be just fine."

They went their separate ways. Tony hung about in his new room (and hey — at least it was a single) for long enough, hopefully, to let everyone clear the hallways. Then he set out on his last errand of the day.

Jean had set up her cot in the same office where she worked. Tony wasn't sure if that was the healthiest idea, but then he was the last person to make remarks about work-life balance. Her door was a few inches ajar, and the light was on. Tony knocked, got an invitation, and went in.

Jean was sitting on her cot with her back to the wall and her legs stretched out. Handfuls of paper sat everywhere within arm's reach. "Hi, Tony," she said. "What do you need?"

He eased the door most of the way shut behind him, and skipped straight past the small talk. "I know what day it is," he said.

She gave a quiet hum. "Some people would argue that neither the local day count nor the approximate length of a solar year hold any intrinsic significance."

"Yeah, well. Some people are ridiculous and you should ignore them."

Jean made a gesture that was _probably_ meant to indicate the chair, but Tony took a slightly more liberal reading of it. He sat down on the cot just past her feet, so that the two of them made a T. "So what critical piece of logistics am I interrupting?"

"Food," she said. "There are a great many things we can find or build for ourselves, but these genetically engineered grains are all we can eat here." Her lip twitched at his expression, and she added, "Regardless of our feelings on the subject. The grain stores are the first things that have to be sent west: I won't risk losing them if we have to abandon this place more quickly than anticipated."

Okay, that actually _was_ a critical piece of logistics. Nevertheless, Tony bravely carried on interrupting it. "Still, I'm assuming you're not going to load up a wagon and start walking _now_ , right?"

She finally set her pencil aside and fixed him with a glare. "And what, as if I didn't already know, is your point?"

"It's your two-year anniversary. Take the night off."

Her faint sigh suggested that her suspicions had been confirmed. "While I'm not a professional, I'm reasonably certain that war doesn't observe holidays, be they statutory or personal. I can't just—"

"Sure you can," he said. "The world doesn't fall apart if you take a few hours for yourself."

The thing was? She looked _exhausted_. The sort of fatigue that dug into the soul. Tony was a little dubious about his chances of annoying her into taking a break, but it was the only strategy at his disposal.

She finally set her pencil down and leaned back, which was a step in the right direction. "I'm somewhat surprised that Peter didn't cajole his way into an invitation," she said.

" _God_. Don't even say the name or he might materialize out of thin air." Tony had won that argument by only the narrowest of margins, and he hadn't been able to sleep that first night on the road until he'd had Vision scour every tree in a half-mile radius.

"It's not unprecedented," Jean said. "He did manage to sneak through the portal and shadow the Avengers for three days without being caught."

"Are you trying to kill me right now? Is that what's happening?"

"Just observing that you have your hands full," she said, smiling at his pain. "Surely you don't need another supervisory project to fill the hours."

"When it's important," he said, "I find the hours."

In a rare turn of events, Jean was the one to duck out of eye contact. "But the camp is running smoothly?" she asked. "They'll be all right for another few weeks?"

"Of course they will. Tavleen rules with an iron fist."

"How about the vault? Have you—"

"Nope," Tony said. "No more work tonight, remember?" When this did not lead to his getting kicked out, he essayed, "Do you want to talk about it?"

She didn't pretend to misunderstand. "I've _been_  talking about it. One eventually encounters diminishing returns."

Tony let the silence settle in, undisturbed.

Eventually, Jean let out a quiet breath. "Killing, on an individual level, is essentially muscle memory," she said. "One of the amusing things about training with Kel is that you can literally practice slitting a throat. It makes a terrible mess. I knew how to do it, and I understand why I had to do it. But the memory of it is still… difficult." Her jaw tightened. "Cowardly of me, I realize—"

" _No_ ," Tony said. "Don't do that. You don't have to do that."

"What am I doing?"

"Acting like finding combat a rough adjustment is some kind of character flaw and not, you know, _human_."

(From among his many nightmares concerning the kid, one of them was his bloodied body lying dead with a sword through it, yes, but another was his bloodied hands holding a sword, and a corpse at his feet. Adults could choose to take on that burden and deal with the consequences, but children… no.)

Jean was still looking away from him, across the room. The momentary bitterness seemed to have abated, leaving the exhaustion behind. "Kel says that it will take time to process the experience, and I can't force my way through it before I'm ready."

"Yeah, I've gotten that line from her, too. Not very satisfying, is it?"

"Not as such."

That was all there was. It hurt, and it just had to keep on hurting until eventually it hurt a little less. Tony knew he couldn't fix it for her — but she also didn't have to deal with it alone.

He stood up and announced, "Just so you know, my game plan right now is to move all those papers back to the desk, then sit down beside you. You onboard with that?"

She groaned. "Oh, Tony, if I stop working, I'll just fall asleep."

"I'm pretty sure the point you just made was the exact opposite of the one you were going for," he told her.

"My only point is that I'm not particularly good company."

He spread his hands. "I'm more than entertaining enough for the both of us."

Finally, _finally_ , he scored a secretly amused eye roll. Jean helped him collect up her notes for transfer, then shifted further into the corner to make room for him on the cot.

It was a little cot, and not a lot of room. The end configuration had Jean tucked beneath his arm and both of them leaning back to a point that looked a lot like lying down.

Tony had done nothing but follow her lead as they'd gotten more and more cozy. But even so, he murmured, "You know I'll leave when you tell me to, right? If this isn't—"

She reached across to clasp his hand where it rested on her arm. "You're a good friend, Tony."

It was, discreetly, a boundary: one that Tony was happy to have stated and happy to follow.

Her eyes began to close almost immediately, which was what he'd figured would happen. But even then, it was going to take a while for her brain to shut down.

"We're stretched too thin," she murmured. "The beta site, the camp, and now this place — we can't hold them all, especially with Vision gone."

"Mm-hm."

"If we get hit on multiple fronts right now, we're going to lose."

"That won't happen. We still have time."

"Wanda's our strongest weapon," she continued. Her words began to slur a little. "I need to shift her to the beta site, and finish moving the noncombatants there as soon as it can sustain them. They're the priority."

"Tomorrow."

"I brought Matt's most recent construction update. It's—"

"Tomorrow," Tony said again.

"Clint saw a fish."

He paused. "Okay, I'm not sure what to do with that one."

"It might have been a signal we failed to acknowledge, or some kind of long-range surveillance."

A long-range… except yeah, this planet was exactly that absurd. "Might have been," Tony said. "Or it might have been a fish."

"Mm. I'm tired."

"So go to sleep," he told her. He reached his free arm back and just barely managed to get his fingers around the little pitcher of liquid. Blindly, he splashed some in the direction of the roots of the overhead light, and it began to dim.

"You don't have to stay," she murmured, even as she tucked herself in a little closer.

"I know," Tony whispered. "Go to sleep."

As she drifted off, her last words were, "I'll get you home, Tony. I swear it."

 

* * *

 

Later, Natasha would confess that she'd almost started to believe that Clint's fish had been just a fish.

Things started out smoothly enough. The day after Steve and Tony arrived, Jean organized the first convoy of ox-drawn wagons that would carry supplies to the labor camp. They had six wagons at their disposal, with enough oxen for each of them plus four extra pairs. Jean sent them all, along with Kel and Natasha for protection. (Oh, how times had changed since Jean had refused to let the two of them run the garrison raid alone.) Included in their inventory: most of the grain that they'd found in storage, raw materials that Tony had requisitioned on behalf of the weapons manufacturing team, and a message from Jean to her administrators with a list of weapons and supplies to be sent back to the garrison, and instructions for subsequent trips.

Escort duty was dull. The oxen were biddable creatures and happily followed the pair in front of them at a steady, plodding rate. Natasha doubted that she and Kel were all that intimidating to the local fauna, but twenty giant glittering Pegasi were too much of a mouthful for even the most ambitious of predators. Nothing bothered them; they followed the road, unhitched the oxen and let them graze on long leads at night, then rotated the pairs pulling carts and the pairs walking free and did it again the next day.

With the looming arrival of the Nyth ship, the team needed to maintain a strong military presence at the garrison. This was the last time that Kel and Natasha could be wasted on babysitting livestock. The three combat teams that Jean had formed from the camp population had already been taking turns to escort lumber shipments and personnel transfers to the beta site — usually with an Avenger or two in tow, but the training wheels had to come off some time — and their duties now expanded to cover both routes. That was why, on their return trip, Natasha and Kel were accompanied by Team One: Gabriela, Frank, Pavel, and — gosh, wasn't Tony going to be surprised by this — the replacement fourth member, Spider-Man.

"They only have three people since Mr. Stark used to be the fourth, but now he has too many other jobs," the boy explained, not that Natasha had asked. " _And_ I can help load and unload the wagons a lot faster than anyone else. _And_ I've been through the forest a bunch of times with Kel, and I know what all the predators are and how they like to hunt, and I can see them coming easier than anyone else besides her. _And_ —"

"I'm not the one you have to convince," Natasha said when it became clear that he wasn't actually going to stop for breath. "When you show up and Tony hits the roof, that's when you can give your persuasion skills a try."

Peter squirmed in place. "He's not gonna… this isn't, like, _combat_ or anything. This is the same sort of stuff I've been doing already. It'll be fine. Right?"

"I guess you'll find out."

(The boy still, after nearly five months, wore a homemade mask. Natasha wondered if he knew that she could recognize him by his voice and his body language with or without the mask, and the same almost certainly went for everyone else on the team. Not that it was her place to spoil his fun.)

The surplus oxen stayed at camp, while six teams and the mostly empty wagons began the return trip the next morning. Jean's plan devoted the bulk of their transport capacity to clearing out the garrison as quickly as possible, since they weren't sure how long they could expect to hold it.

Five days out, five days back. No trouble.

Tony did hit the roof. However, it was more of a reflex than anything else. The forest, while not _safe_ as such, was a known commodity, and the risks to Spider-Man were relatively small. Kel (patiently) and Spider-Man (plaintively) pointed this out until Tony ran out of objections.

There were eleven of them in residence that night, and the two little office buildings didn't have enough rooms for everyone. Jean's reluctance to use the Mjentur barracks for any reason remained as strong as ever. Instead of putting the overflow there, she asked for volunteers to double up.

A silly little detail: they didn't sleep where the previous inhabitants had slept. Insignificant, really. And it was the only thing that saved them.

The explosion that flung Natasha from her sleep sounded like the end of the world.

Reflexes kicked in before brain cells did. Out of bed ( _ears still ringing_ ), feet in boots, reach for—

A body bumped into her and Natasha nearly had a knife in her hand before—

"What the _hell_ was that?" Jean demanded.

"Nothing good," said Natasha. Her hand found her sword; she could tell from the shape of the shadows that Jean had picked up her spear. "You ready?"

"Not much choice."

In the dark, they stumbled out into the corridor, amidst everyone else doing the same. Cross-talk and disorientation and unsheathed weapons carried them all like a wave out the front door. The second office spilled its occupants likewise.

The Mjentur believed in sturdy construction. The barracks next to them was a building made from heavy logs and solid cross beams. Or it had been. Now it was nothing more than a smear across the landscape, stretching from the foundations all the way out to the barrier. Flickers of fire could be seen among the splinters.

As one, they stopped and stared. Then heads began to turn, tracking the blast back to its source.

Just above sea level, a great distance from shore, a point of blue-white light appeared. It began as a faint glimmer, but intensified fast.

" _Get behind the vault_!" Jean bellowed, and the group broke into a run.

Barely in time. A flash, bright as the sun, and then the next blast was inbound. The ball of light flew across sea and land, almost too fast to track. It roared past with the heat of a bonfire and struck the office building Natasha had just left. There was a deafening blast and a shower of shattered wood, and when it was over, nothing remained but a second smear of debris across the grass.

Natasha counted heads; saw Jean doing the same. Only ten, and the missing head was Kel's — but no, there she was, bolting toward them from the north side of the compound. She didn't put on the brakes until the last possible second and practically slammed into the vault wall.

The rest — in undershirts and stocking feet, some of them, and Spider-Man in his mask — were present but shaken.

"When the _fuck_ did this place get energy weapons?" Tony snarled. "This is B-Movie Greek Mythology planet, _not_ Energy Weapons planet!"

Jean ignored that. "Kel, is it alive, and can you kill it?"

"Yes," Kel said shortly. She was already stripping off her jacket. "But if this is who I think, they also have a smaller one on land. Once they lead me away—"

"We'll deal with the second wave when it happens. Can you tell—"

"From the south. I searched north tonight. Guessed wrong. Four fives and they won't be easy."

"Understood. Go."

In rapid succession, she shucked her boots, belt and metal hand, and handed Tony her sword, then broke cover and took a running dive into the water.

Jean turned. "Tony, help me: how is it targeting? It can't be heat signatures, or we'd be dead already."

"Echolocation." It wasn't Tony who answered, but Peter. "Like a bat. I can hear it, kind of. More feel it."

"Continuous?"

"No, they sort of make a sweep right before they fire, like — like _that_." His mouth screwed up and he lifted his hands to his ears. "You guys seriously don't feel that?"

Clint leaned out around the corner of the vault. "It's shifting north, trying for a better angle on us. Move this way, _now_!"

They crowded together. Another flash lit up the night, and a second later the vault shook to its foundations. But the vibranium did what it did and reflected the energy blast back out over open water. They were safe.

Steve said, "If they decide they can't get a bead on us—"

"I know," said Jean. "They'll go back to systematic bombardment of the compound."

"If one of those blasts hits the stable—"

"The grain—"

"The _explosives_ —"

"Clint, could you tell how far away it was?" Jean asked.

"Bit less than half a mile," he said.

She gave a tight nod. "Six more."

"Uh… says who?"

"It takes the blast a minute to recharge. Kel can swim half a mile in less than eight minutes. We're one down, six to go."

"You want to wait them out?" Steve asked.

"No," she said. "We can't. Southwest One through Four are empty — that's where I'll draw their fire. The rest of you—"

But this elicited a flurry of protests.

"No _way_ you make that run alone," Tony snapped.

"I can't risk more people than necessary, and I can't split our forces more than necessary."

"Two targets are more convincing than one," Sam said. "I'm going too, and you can't stop me, so save your breath."

(Steve, shoulders tight and jaw clenched, said nothing. He obviously wanted to go; he obviously couldn't.)

Then Peter chimed in, "I'm faster than all of you. I should—"

" _No_ ," Jean and Tony barked simultaneously, and he looked away, scowling hard.

Sam began shifting to the outside of the cluster. "When do we—"

"Wait for one more blast," Jean said.

"If you're wrong…"

"Wait."

It was a gamble, and she won. First, the flash; then another impact rocked the vault and was deflected away.

"Once their weapon is gone, you'll be overrun," Jean said to the group. "We'll rejoin your position as soon as we can. Avengers, you know your jobs." She turned to the remaining four. "The rest of you—"

"Don't even fuckin' say it," Frank said.

"No, I'll say it, and I'll say it exactly once," she retorted. "Take cover in the vault. Do not engage the enemy, do not put yourselves at risk. This is our job, _not_ yours. Do I make myself _goddamned_ clear?"

There were three reluctant nods.

" _Peter_?"

"Twenty seconds," Natasha said.

"Yeah, whatever, I got it," he said to the tops of his boots.

There was no more time. Jean looked to Sam, who gave her a nod.

"Let's go," she said, and they ran.

(The blasts didn't move at the speed of light. They could be dodged. This wasn't a suicide mission — it was just damned risky.)

The two of them ran, and the rest of them watched. The runners split up once they passed the barracks, angling northwest and southwest. With any good luck, the enemy would have to consider the possibility that, just maybe, one of the sheds in the southwest quadrant of the compound held not farming tools but a weapon worth risking two lives for.

Their gambit had gotten somebody's attention. The next lightning ball went after Sam. He pulled up hard and threw himself to the side, and it just barely passed him. The blast scorched one of the grain fields, destroyed a barrier post, and disappeared into the forest.

The next one came for Jean, and she pulled the same trick.

Then a pause. More than a minute. Sam and Jean were almost at their decoy destination.

The fourth blast passed between them and wiped out Southwest Two, Three and Four and all the grain between them, narrowly missed One, and punched another hole in the barrier.

Jean waved Sam on, still committed to the bluff, and the enemy wasted another salvo on the last of the storage sheds.

It was as much as they could have possibly done. The only thing the pair of them could do now was fall back, which they did.

There was one more blast expected, and if Natasha were in charge of the bombardment, she would switch to military targets. That could be the armory, which would hurt them. Or it could be the stables, which would cripple them.

But no light appeared on the horizon. No fireball number six came blasting in. Instead…

It was the barest shadow of motion, to Natasha's eyes. All but indistinguishable from the waves. But it was followed by a terrible, wailing cry that screeched through the upper registers of her hearing.

"She got it," Clint confirmed.

Gabriela asked, "Did she surface even once since…"

"Nope," said Clint, and shrugged. "Don't look at me, I just work here."

But the battle wasn't over. The monster's death wail was simply the cue for the next attack.

"Everyone taking cover," Natasha said, "now would be the time."

Gabriela scowled fiercely. "I can't believe Jean actually expects us to—"

"She does, and she's right," Natasha said bluntly, and nodded at the sword in Gab's hand. "It's not like killing animals — these guys are going to fight back, and you don't have the training for it. So get inside."

The vault, which had been stripped of its cinder block exterior, was a massive metal cube. Tony had long since sliced them a back door, disabled the traps and the lock from the inside, then repaired the hole. The only obstacle to entry was the weight of the door. Two humans at full strength could barely shift it; Spider-Man did it with one hand.

Speaking of training, Tony was still holding Kel's sword, now unsheathed. Natasha hoped to hell that some of the time he'd spent with Kel and Jean had included fencing lessons.

The enemy came marching from the south, as predicted. These weren't Mjentur. The species was bipedal, but lizard-like, with scales and protruding snouts, and needle-sharp teeth and claws. They wore leather armor and carried a range of spears and battle axes.

And behind them…

The body was about seven feet tall, and looked like approximately four squids trying to locomote by consensus. Protruding from the top of the mess of tentacles was something Natasha might have taken for an eyestalk, if not for the blue-white glow.

The blasts from the sea monster had been boulder-sized. This was only a baseball. But it struck the bottom half of the closest barrier post and shattered it into splinters. The threads gave their familiar _twang_ as they snapped; in the air, the top half of the post shuddered and twisted.

From behind her came the familiar snap of Clint's bowstring. But the tentacle creature fired at almost the same instant, and the arrow was zapped into nothingness.

That was a problem.

The eyestalk was suddenly enveloped by a glob of Spider-Man's webbing (Tony turned and snapped at the boy to close the damned door). Clint fired again and again in rapid succession, and the arrows sank into the mass of tentacles with no apparent effect.

That was another problem.

The monster cleared its eyestalk with a blast of energy that spattered in all directions, and resumed firing. The soldiers advanced in front of it, in no particular hurry — they knew their quarry was pinned down. The defensive team retreated to what little cover they could find against the walls of the vault.

At least, that was what they were expected to do, which was why Natasha instead rushed forward. She ducked and slashed her way through the advancing line of soldiers before they had time to react, and charged the monster. It turned its eyestalk on her and she dodged — just barely in time, and the blast singed her hair. Another blast, closer, and now her shirt was scorched. The closest soldiers were reversing course to stop her, but they wouldn't reach her in time—

She thrust her sword full-length through the tentacles. The blade met solid flesh, and with all her strength she slashed it open.

There was a stench like week-old rotten fish. The monster shuddered and squelched as it reeled back from her. Tentacles convulsed and the eyestalk wobbled…

For a second or two. It writhed so much it seemed to turn itself inside out, then stabilized and fixed her in its sights.

But Spider-Man blocked its eye again, and Clint picked off two of the soldiers that had caught up to her while Natasha cut down the third. Behind her, the sputtering blast meant that the monster could fire—

" _Down_!" Clint shouted, and Nat hit the deck.

Above her, an arrow incoming. The monster shot it out of the air—

And the grenade went off like a fireball. Precious seconds of disorientation were enough for her to clear the enemy lines and make it back to cover.

Sam and Jean used the same window of opportunity to rejoin the group. They were sweating from the hard sprint, but they already had their spears back in hand.

"Nat, you okay?" Sam asked.

She waved a dismissive hand. "So much for my bright idea," she said to Jean. "What's yours?"

"Don't die for another five minutes," was the reply.

Then the soldiers were on them, and the melee began.

Conscious thought dropped away, and training took over. The soldiers were quick and agile, but not as strong as the Mjentur. Natasha ducked beneath a slash and thrust her sword into her opponent's torso. He screeched as he died, then two more were on her. All around her were grunts and cries and clashing metal.

Natasha finished her two opponents, and the one that followed, and found herself momentarily unthreatened. The monster couldn't shoot at them while its own people were so close. It could only pick off stragglers, and anyone who tried to run. She spotted it several yards away from the fight, not firing at the moment. The soldiers had lost over half their number, while all of Natasha's people were still on their feet. Tony and Jean were back to back, Clint had traded bow for spear, Sam drove his spearpoint into a soldier's throat as she watched, and Steve…

Steve had three on him at once. They were driving him back, away from the relative safety of the crowd, out to where the monster would have a clean shot.

She ran for him, finishing off a soldier who'd been pinned to the ground with webbing as she passed (Spider-Man had some scolding in his future, assuming they all survived this). Steve was holding up but he couldn't do it for much longer. He sliced one of the soldiers across the face with his sword and sent it reeling back, but the other two trapped the weapon and tore it from his hand. Steve jumped back from the swing of an axe—

Natasha was there. She skewered one soldier from behind, and it dropped. The second spun to face her, too late. She blocked its panicked swipe and laid open its leg, then its neck, then dropped her sword and rushed Steve and shoved him aside with all her strength, and the incoming fireball missed him and almost but didn't quite miss her.

White-hot pain lit up her sword arm as the fireball scorched past. She didn't scream ( _never scream_ ), and took the pain ( _pain could be controlled_ ) and walled it off behind a lifetime of discipline ( _nothing matters but the mission pain can be controlled don't believe me? here, let's practice_ ). She could function, but the arm was dead.

She and Steve both fell. The soldier Steve had driven back had recovered. It towered over them, about to chop down, and Natasha reached for a knife—

Tony caught its axe blade on his sword. A quick circle of his wrist disarmed it, and he finished with a deep thrust to its chest.

That left them clear of soldiers, and back in the line of fire.

Charred flesh was in her nostrils. She hated the smell. She could feel the cold and distance of creeping shock. Idly, she wondered how good Aaron was at burn scars, because her arm really was quite the mess.

No, focus. Steve and Tony had grabbed her and were carry-dragging her back toward the vault, but cover was too far and the group of them had no hope of dodging another blast.

But then Kel came dashing in and planted herself between them and the monster. She was still sopping wet from her swim, barefoot and weaponless, but she'd strapped on her artificial hand. The blast came in and she brought the metal up to block.

The force of the impact jolted her backward, and the fireball ricocheted and struck one of the last of the soldiers, who went down screaming.

Belatedly, Natasha recognized Tony's work. If he was building hands for her, of course he would have made one of vibranium.

They reached the vault, and Steve set Natasha down against the wall. He, Sam and Tony closed ranks. Natasha didn't see…

"Jean and Clint are around back," Sam said, in response to her look. "They're… well, they're both down, but we think they'll be okay."

Kel was closing on the monster. It continued to fire, but she deflected every blast, and finally thrust her flesh hand into its body. It thrashed and convulsed, and the flux of tentacles almost hid her from view. But skin contact, as always, won the day. The life went out of the thing, and it collapsed into a puddle of slimy flesh.

Kel inhaled, and the world seemed to contract and expand with her (though maybe that was the shock talking). Then, quite slowly, she turned her head toward the remaining soldiers.

As one, they made a break for the fence.

Natasha could see the predator's instinct to give chase, but Kel fought it back. She was a bit more herself by the time she reached the vault.

"That was unpleasant," she said, and opened her arms to indicate the slime she was now wearing.

"And I will personally heat the water for you to shower in," Sam said, "but right now we've got a couple emergencies that could use your attention."

"Yes," she said, distantly. Then she gave her head a shake and repeated, "Yes."

She did her nerve block on Natasha first — and as if Natasha's state of mind hadn't been dubious enough, the sudden absence of pain was so profound as to be euphoric. She floated to her feet and followed the group around to the back of the vault.

Steve somehow managed to offer her a supporting arm while cringing away from her with every other part of his body. She understood, of course: she'd gotten hurt protecting him, and from something that he would never have needed protecting from if he'd been at full Captain America capacity. She knew, because she knew Steve, that he would slink off somewhere to feel deeply ashamed about that just as soon as he was sure that the rest of them were all right. She'd talk to him about it, but it would have to wait until she'd seen a healer about her burn situation.

Gabriela, Frank and Pavel had been freed from the vault. (It wasn't clear if Spider-Man had ever so much as pretended to join them.) The two men milled around awkwardly. Jean sat with her back very straight against the wall of the vault, and Gab knelt beside her, pressing a handful of cloth against the deep wound in her abdomen.

Clint sat next to Jean. A cut in his forehead had spilled blood into one eye, and the other looked a little unfocused.

He observed Natasha's state at the same time as she observed his. A quick look between them was enough to convey, in both directions, _yes, it's bad, but it could have been worse_. Occupational hazard, as they both knew well.

"Boss-Lady got stabbed," Clint said, pointing an accusing finger.

"Clint has a concussion," Jean retorted.

"Oh please — I got my bell rung, it's nothing. You're the one with your guts hanging out."

"You were unconscious for at least five seconds. Head wounds have triage priority. I read that on the internet." Contrary to all available evidence, she added, "I'm fine. I'm just taking a moment to fully experience the… experience."

Kel knelt in front of Clint, who wrinkled his nose and said, "No offense, but you're gooey."

"Yes," she said, studying his open eye carefully without touching him. "And you're dizzy and nauseated."

"Thought it was impolite to tell your patients what they're feeling."

"Tonight I'm in a hurry."

She shifted over to Jean, and reached out to take her wrist while murmuring to Gab to keep doing what she was doing. "It's deep," she said. "There's organ damage. Will take time to heal."

"You can set up an infirmary in the office building we've got left," Jean said. "As for where the rest can sleep—"

"Don't worry about that," Steve said. "We'll handle the new configuration, the cleanup, everything. Just get yourself taken care of."

"The first thing you need to do is—"

"Is get the fence repaired before the local scavengers get interested," Steve said. "We're on it."

"And also—"

"Send up a warning flare to the camp so they at least know to be on alert," he said patiently.

"Ah. I see I'm unnecessary — how nice."

"Sorry," Tony blurted. "This is— and as one of the relatively undamaged, I will be helping with chores and all that, but first I've got to— Kel, where'd the kid go? He bolted right after you showed up, and I made damned sure nothing followed him, but—"

"He's by the horses," Kel replied.

"Of course Spider-Man is your first priority," Steve added. "The rest of us can manage."

"Yeah. Good. And I swear, when we get back to camp, I'm tying _anvils_ to his feet."

"Tony," Jean said, just as he started to turn away. "Armor. Before we have to do this for real."

"I know," he said. "Alisha's already working on it."

"And Tony?"

" _What_?"

"Take it easy on Peter," she said.

" _Why_?"

"Because I'm asking you to."

Natasha wasn't sure exactly what passed between them, but it happened at a very personal level. After a moment, Tony nodded and, more calmly, jogged off toward the stables.

The uninjured — which was something of a misnomer, since everyone had cuts and bruises — began to shepherd their less fortunate colleagues toward the office building that hadn't been blasted out of existence. _Before we have to do this for real_ , Jean had said, and she'd been right: this had been nothing but a minor skirmish compared to the forces they were expecting to face, and it had left three of their number incapacitated. They had to do a lot better on every possible scale if they were going to survive.

 


	37. Chapter 37

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't said it in a while, but I certainly never forget it: my deepest thanks to everyone who is reading and enjoying. This has been in many ways a profoundly personal project, and I'm astonished and delighted that it has connected with an audience.

Jogging and fuming didn't go all that well together, so Tony soon slowed to a walk.

_Kid, don't go through the portal._ And what happened?

_Kid, don't leave the camp._ And what happened?

_Kid, stay inside the vault_. And what happened?

He'd hit his limit. This time there were going to be consequences. There was going to be _yelling_. Unilateral… sanctions, of some sort. Additional yelling.

(And for Jean of all people — who had never been shy about slapping folks down when they bucked her authority — to suddenly come over all soft on the kid… it made no sense and it didn't matter. _Consequences_ and _yelling_.)

There was quite a lot of territory that could be described as 'by the horses'. The stable was a large building: there were a dozen oxen and at least that many horses currently in residence, and it still wasn't filled to capacity. If Peter decided to play hide-and-seek, it could take some effort to track him down.

Tony picked up the pace again when he reached the edge of the pasture, and as such he almost missed the scrap of fabric lying on the grass, almost invisible in the dark. It was the kid's mask, discarded. As he drew closer, a sour smell turned his stomach and suggested how the mask had come to be there.

It suddenly dawned on him that he didn't know why the kid had bolted. The battle had been a bloody mess, and Tony had assumed that he'd run due to some combination of knowing that he was in trouble and needing to get away from the corpses. From what he'd seen, Peter had mostly flitted around the edges of the battlefield, never diving into the thick of things. But Tony'd also had to pay _some_ attention to the twenty lizards with spears, and awareness was now creeping in that he might not have the whole story.

The back door to the barn stood ajar, and Tony stepped inside. Aside from what little starlight leaked in through the skylights, it was pitch black. He left the door open behind him, and waited for his eyes to adjust as much as they were going to. He knew from past visits that shelves of tack and bins of feed were straight ahead, and the rows of stalls started to the left.

"Don't make me hunt for you, kid," he said.

The wait seemed to stretch on for hours. Eventually, a tiny voice responded, "Back here."

Which wasn't all that informative, but it had been coming from the left. Tony put his hand on the near wall for guidance and headed in that direction, hoping to hell that there were no tools or whatever left lying out at shin-murdering height. His footfalls were loud against the gentle background noises of rustling scales and huffing breaths from the sleeping livestock.

Beneath each skylight was a little pool of not-quite-as-dark. By the time Tony reached the last one, he could make out the contrast between Peter's clothes and the darker shades of the wooden wall. The kid was sitting on the ground, curled up in the very farthest corner of the barn.

"I'm sorry," Peter said when Tony reached him.

Maybe Tony wasn't yelling yet, but he sure as hell wasn't happy, either. "Under the circumstances, that isn't nearly good enough."

"I know, just… _please_ …"

Peter sounded on the verge of tears, and _shit_ , there was something seriously wrong. _Okay — back off, regroup, revise strategy_.

Tony lowered himself to the ground (not without some complaints from kneecaps and vertebrae and other parts that were getting too old for this), and settled himself against the wall next to Peter. "Are you hurt?" he asked.

"I threw up," Peter said dully.

"Yeah. It happens." From this close, he could tell that Peter had his knees pulled up and his arms wrapped around his stomach. "You were supposed to stay in the vault."

"I know."

"Okay. So tell me what happened."

Tony waited out the long, long hesitation until he heard a quiet sigh.

"After Black Widow rushed the big tentacle thing and nearly got… you told me to get back in the vault, I know, but I wanted to _do_ something. Like, 'keep your distance, web 'em up', remember? That's what… that's why I…" He broke off with a choked sob.

Tony was calm. He had to be calm. "Tell me what happened," he said again.

"I, um." Peter sniffed. "It was one of the lizard guys. There were so many of them and they were everywhere, and I wasn't sure what to do, but this one… he had an axe and he was coming up on Jean from behind, so I webbed him to the ground. So he couldn't… he couldn't… and then… Black Widow ran past and she just… _cut him open_. Because _I_ —"

"No, listen to me—"

" _I did that_! _I killed_ —"

" _Peter_ ," Tony snapped. "Listen to me right now. Those guys were dead the second they targeted us. They were dead the second they crossed the barrier. There was only one way this was ever going to end, and nothing, not one thing that you did or didn't do had any impact on the outcome. _It wasn't you_. Do you hear me?"

Peter didn't respond. Operating on instinct, Tony shifted closer and put his arm around the kid and pulled him in close. Peter was a tight bundle of misery against his side.

"I'm sorry," he whispered again.

_So am I, kiddo. You have no idea_. "On the subject of following instructions, there are still some conversations to be had," Tony said. "Unpleasant ones. Understand?"

Peter gave a tiny nod.

"However. For tonight, the only thing I care about is that you're safe."

Tony had no idea how long they sat together. Time seemed meaningless, there in the dark. Little by little, Peter's breathing began to settle, and his muscles began to unknot — that was all that mattered.

Some indeterminate amount of time later, Peter asked, "How bad was— uh… how bad were people hurt?"

"If we didn't have an empath around, we'd be in trouble," Tony said. "Barton got knocked on the head. It didn't look too serious, as these things go, but you can't be too careful with head wounds. Jean took a pretty nasty stab to the guts. Gotta figure it'll put her out of commission for at least a couple days. Natasha's the worst off: she's got burns the full length of her arm from one of those energy blasts."

"But they'll be okay, right? Jean and everyone. Kel can heal them?"

"She seemed to have things under control when I left. I'm hoping we get an update later tonight." Then, because Tony had not in fact been born yesterday, he asked, pointedly, "What about you? Are you injured?"

"What? No! I'm fine. Really, it's fine. Nothing happened. I'm completely fine."

Tony used his free hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Uh-huh. Want to try the truth this time?"

This produced another reluctant silence, and eventually another quiet sigh.

"It's just a scratch," Peter mumbled. "On my side. My other side. I should've… but there were so many of them everywhere, and I'd just seen… and I didn't quite get away in time."

Tony needed a quiet moment of his own to feel the sharp spike of _how fucking DARE they_ —

…and let it pass through him, unvoiced. Instead, when he could speak calmly again, he said, "Kel needs to take a look at that, all right? Tonight, as soon as she's free."

Peter squirmed. "It's just… my mask, when I… And now I really don't want everyone to see my face."

"You took it off for her before."

"Well, yeah, but Kel's different. She doesn't exactly live on Earth, right? But if everyone else is around, too…"

"We'll figure something out until you can make yourself a new one," Tony said. "But kiddo, if you got cut, you need to get it taken care of."

Peter picked his head up, and Tony felt him turn toward the door. "Actually, she's coming here."

Sure enough, a shadow appeared in the doorway moments later, and started toward them. "It's me," Kel announced.

Tony could hear her approaching steps and see her shadow as she crossed beneath each skylight. Once she was within a couple yards of them, he said, "Not that I'm complaining, but I'd've thought you were too busy for house calls."

"Everyone is stable," she replied. "They rest for now. Sometimes it's safer to go slower."

Kel sat down with her back to the adjacent wall, so that Peter was boxed in between them (or, depending on the point of view, protected on both sides). She rested her hand lightly on his elbow and said, "Can I see?"

Peter lifted up his arm. Tony could kind of make out a darker streak across his shirt that might have been blood, or dirt, or a shadow. He certainly couldn't discern any useful details. But Kel hadn't really been referring to sight. She held her hand out over the wound, not touching it.

"Not deep," she said after a moment. "But it needs to be cleaned and closed. Can I touch your hand to stop the pain?"

Against Tony's shoulder, Peter's head nodded. Kel clasped his hand, and he gave a little twitch of surprise.

"Better?"

Another nod.

"When you're ready, we'll go," she said. Apparently in no rush, she leaned her head back and stretched out her legs.

"I didn't see him," Peter said softly after a time. "The one that… I know I should have, but…"

"When you sense everything, can be hard to tell which threats are closest," Kel said. "I had the same problem when I was young."

The kid was starting to sound a lot less freaked out. "I know we have to go back to the buildings," he said, "but I really don't want anyone else to see me without my mask. Is that okay?"

"The three who were hurt are in separate rooms," Kel told him. "The rest work on the border fence. They're all at the perimeter to the west right now. Easy to avoid, I think."

"Okay," Peter said. "Then I guess I'm ready."

They disentangled themselves and helped each other stand, then Kel led the way back out of the barn. Peter kept his right arm wrapped around his side, so Tony still couldn't tell how bad the damage was. He didn't press the point; Kel would be fixing it soon anyway.

Tony hadn't studied the local constellations enough to be able to tell the time at night. It was fully dark, with no hints of sunrise yet on the horizon. Judging by how much sleep it felt like he'd gotten — an imprecise metric, to be sure — he guessed that it was well past local midnight, and they'd be seeing dawn in two or three hours.

(There was a clock in the scorpions' control room. He'd deciphered that much of their tech. But apparently they didn't care enough to share it with their Minotaur contractors.)

As promised, none of the other inhabitants were anywhere within sight, and the three of them made the walk back to the office-turned-dorm-turned-hospital undisturbed. The surviving building was the one that had the dining room in it, and that was where Kel had set up her OR. Supplies, at least, weren't an issue, since everything they used at the labor camp could be found in some warehouse or other there at the garrison. A clean sheet covered the dining table, and a row of chairs across the far wall served as a makeshift countertop, bearing trays with a familiar array of instruments and jars.

There was an awkward moment at the threshold when Kel, nicely but unambiguously, stopped Tony's forward momentum. She took Peter off to the side for a private word, and only beckoned Tony in once she'd gotten the okay. Since consideration for boundaries was probably the sort of thing that made it easier for Peter to trust her, Tony tried not to bristle too hard at it.

"Take off your shirt and lie down on your side," Kel said to Peter, and he did as he was told.

The room held one chair that wasn't being used for other purposes, and Tony laid claim to it after he'd shut the door. He positioned himself next to the table and out of Kel's way, and got his first look at the kid's injury.

Among the matters they were going to have to discuss was Peter's definition of a scratch, because this was not it. It was in fact a gash fully a handsbreadth long, stretching across his lower ribs. Tony hoped to _hell_ that the lizard who'd done that was among the dead lying outside. Even better if Tony'd been the one to gut him.

(Kel glanced at Tony like she'd sensed his distress, which of course she had, and he gave his head a quick shake. He could hold it together.)

Once Peter had gotten settled as comfortably as possible, Kel draped towels over him above and below the cut.

"I have to get some things ready first," she told him. "Then I'll clean the wound, and heal it empathically. It won't hurt at all — just contact, and some pressure. I think this will be easy, but let me know if you need to stop. Yes?"

"Yeah," Peter said. "Go ahead, I'm okay." Then he tilted his head to look at Tony and, incongruously, began to grin.

"What's so funny?" Tony asked.

"You called me 'Peter' back there," he said. "You never do that."

"You sure that's what I said? I'm pretty sure it was more of a 'Spider-Brat' sort of moment."

"No, you definitely said 'Peter'." His expression sobered. "And thanks for… you know. The stuff you said. And for not completely freaking out on me."

"Don't thank me yet," Tony said. "This is just a temporary reprieve, remember? You're still in trouble."

From the other side of the table, Kel began to clean Peter's wound with the usual antiseptic green goop.

"I was angry at you sometimes," Peter admitted after a pause. "At all of you, really. It was like you were treating me like a kid, like you didn't understand what I could do. But what happened tonight? I never saw _anything_ like that before."

Tony struggled to keep his voice even. "I never wanted you to," he said quietly.

"When the real army gets here, it's going to be even worse, right?" Peter was starting to tense up again, his eyes widening in alarm. "When it's _hundreds_ of soldiers, how can we—"

"Lie still," Kel interjected gently, and settled her fingertips on his side. "I'm almost done."

"These guys, whoever the hell they were, took us by surprise," Tony said. "We weren't ready. When the real thing starts, we will be. And at any rate, that's not your problem — you just stick to running your little escort missions, and let the rest of us handle the front lines."

The grin made a cautious reappearance. "I can still do that?" Peter asked. "You're not gonna ground me or, like, tie me to a tree or something?"

"Well, that was my first plan, but it turns out we can't spare the rope."

Peter chuckled (and Kel didn't shush him this time). The kid was resilient. He'd be okay.

It wasn't much longer before Kel was drying off Peter's newly healed skin. She'd brought her A-game: only the faintest trace of a line remained. Someone who didn't know what to look for might not even notice.

"You can sit up," she told him, and he did. She gently manipulated his arm this way and that. "Any pain?"

"No, it's totally fine now," Peter said.

"Good. Wait here and I'll get you a clean shirt." She gave Tony's arm a quick squeeze on her way out.

Peter was fidgeting with the edge of the towel that was wrapped around his shoulders. "Mr. Stark? It wasn't your fault, either. I know you didn't want me to come here, and maybe now I get why. A lot better than I did before." He glanced Tony's way, then ducked his head. "But it wasn't… like, even if we'd never met, and I didn't have the suit, and it was just the Avengers on TV, going through the portal? I think I still would have done it."

"What — in your onesie?"

Peter tried to scoff, but the grin pretty much spoiled it. "Yeah," he said. "In my onesie. Because heroes help people, no matter how hard it is. Iron Man taught me that."

No, Tony's eyes were _not_ stinging. "Wow," he said. "That was _right_ on the boundary between endearing and infuriating."

"Okay, but a little bit more the first one, right?"

"Maybe, but don't push your luck."

Peter's mood began to shift again. "So, um. How much trouble am I in?"

"Six," Tony said. "The amount of trouble you are in scores a six."

"That doesn't sound so bad."

"It's a log scale."

"Oh." He looked down. "Uh… there's kind of… I don't want it to get worse than six, but… during the fight, there was something else that—"

At which point Kel showed up and shattered the moment. "Here," she said, and handed over a bundle of fabric. "One to wear, and a second one and scissors and thread, yes? So you can make another…" She gestured at her face.

"That's awesome, thanks!" Peter chirped, and swiftly dressed.

Tony started to say, "We were kind of in the middle of something—"

"Actually, Mr. Stark? It's not important." The kid hopped down from the table, clutching the second T-shirt to his chest like someone was going to take it from him. "Really. It was nothing."

"It didn't sound like nothing ten seconds ago."

"No, it was! I just—"

"Maybe," Kel said, "before you both finish this, I can say one more thing? Peter, Jean was concerned about you when you left. Before you go to bed, would you talk to her?"

Peter's response would have been more appropriate if she'd asked him to say goodnight to a giant scorpion. He blanched and backpedalled until he ran into the table. "Jean wants to see me?" he squeaked.

"Yes," Kel said. She did not react to his reaction. "She's just across the hall. Is it all right?"

"Um. No, yeah, I _would_ ," Peter said, still edging away, "but it's just that I don't have a new mask yet, so…"

Plainly this was _not_ just about the secret identity situation, but Tony decided to follow Kel's lead and ignore the subtext. "It's your call, kid," he said, "but I trust Jean. If there's anyone else around here that can see your face, it's her."

"No, but… it's just that…" But then Peter's shoulders slumped. Tony could see the moment when he resigned himself to facing whatever the hell had him so spooked. "Okay," he mumbled. "I'll go."

"Good," Kel said cheerfully, as if Peter didn't look like he was about to perform his own appendectomy. "Come with me."

The three of them (since Tony sure as hell wasn't sitting this out) crossed the hall to what used to be someone's bedroom and was now a recovery ward. Inside, the light was on at half power, and Jean was in the cot, under the blankets and half-propped up against the pillow with — Tony couldn't believe it, except yeah, he really could — pencil and paper in hand.

"You have trouble with the idea of rest," Kel said.

"I'm using my hands and my eyes, not my intestines," Jean replied. Then her focus shifted. "Hello, Peter." Not unexpectedly, she had a moment's reaction to how _fifteen_ the kid was, but she hid it almost immediately. "This is an unexpected privilege."

" _I'm so sorry_!" The apology burst out of him with the force of a grenade. "It's my fault that you're—"

"No, it certainly is _not_ ," Jean retorted. "What happened to me was not in any way your fault."

"It _was_ , though!" Peter cried, and Tony understood, he understood the whole thing — what Peter had almost said earlier, and what he was about to say now — a split second before the kid explained it. "The guy that stabbed you — I saw him coming. I could have stopped him. I _should_ have stopped him! But…"

"But you'd just seen what happened to the last one you stopped," Jean said gently. "I know. I saw it, too."

_When you can do the things that I can, but you don't, and_ then _the bad things happen? They happen because of you_. Tony knew exactly what this was echoing. For the second time that night, he wrapped his arm around the kid's shoulders.

"I should have stopped him," Peter said again. "He was right there, I _had_ him, but…"

Without any accusation in her tone, Jean said, "But you froze."

Peter nodded.

"I've been reminded recently that that is a very human response," she told him. "Maybe that doesn't make it any easier to live with right now, but I promise you, nobody blames you for it." When he didn't respond, she added, "Did you really think I brought you here so I could yell at you?"

"Um. Yes?"

"Well, I didn't," she said. "As far as _this_ is concerned—" she gave a nod at her midsection "—predominantly I blame the lizard who stabbed me, and to some degree I blame myself for getting outmaneuvered. I don't blame you in the slightest. Do you believe me?"

He gave a noncommittal shrug.

"We'll work on it," Jean said. "In the meantime, I'm going to get yelled at myself if I get out of this bed, so you'll have to come here."

She beckoned, and he slouched his way over and leaned into her opened arms. The predictable teenage huff of impatience with all the hugging was undercut by the way he buried his face in her shoulder. Jean murmured something further, too softly for Tony to hear, and this time she managed to coax a nod from him.

"On a related topic," Jean continued once Peter had straightened up again, "I expect that Tony will have some words for you about following orders. Once you've heard it from him, you're going to hear it again from me. I make the best decisions I can to keep everyone safe, but I can't do that if I don't know what the rest of my team is doing. When we tell you to stay someplace, that's what you have to do. No exceptions. Otherwise, you put everyone at greater risk. Do you understand?"

Peter quailed under the scolding. "Yeah," he said quietly. "I… yes. I understand. I screwed up."

"Yes, you did."

"I'm sorry."

"I appreciate that, Peter. Thank you." Her expression softened, and she reached out to give his hand a little squeeze. "It was a difficult night. Get some sleep now, okay?"

"Yeah," Peter said. "Um… you, too."

Custody of the kid passed from Jean to Kel. "There's one room left," Kel said. "I'll show you. Tony, I'll be back very soon."

She shut the door behind them, leaving Tony and Jean alone. Tony gave a quick nod in response to Jean's quizzically arched eyebrows: yes, he was all caught up on the extra dimension to the kid's bad night, and she'd handled it as well as it could have been handled.

"You're good, though, right?" he asked, as if they'd already been mid-conversation.

"Of course," Jean replied. "I'll be… inconvenienced for a few days, nothing more. And Natasha, I'm told, is resting comfortably, and Kel hasn't seen any evidence of complications from Clint's head injury."

"Good. Now, I generally prefer not to make violent threats against injured women, but in this particular case, if you don't put that paperwork down, I will take it from you by force."

She started to chuckle, but quickly broke off with a grimace and wrapped her arm around her stomach. "Abdominal surgery, Tony — have pity. And you needn't resort to fisticuffs. I just had to keep myself going long enough to check on Peter. Here." She willingly handed over her notes, which were indecipherable as always. Tony tossed them and the pencil on the desk, and doused the lights (and, since it was turning out to be that kind of a night, leaned in to collect his own swift embrace).

He met Kel in the hallway. At his whispered request, she pointed out Peter's room, then beckoned him back to the OR.

Once they were behind closed doors again, she asked, "Can I take a look at your arm?"

"Yeah, might as well."

Tony knew he was damned lucky, given that he'd worn a T-shirt to a swordfight. He'd only gotten cut the once — a slash down the outer edge of his forearm. Standard defensive wound. Stung like hell at the time, but it hadn't gone deep enough to do any real damage, and frankly he'd done worse to himself in the workshop.

Kel changed the sheet on the exam table, then Tony took his turn to sit still like a good boy while she worked her magic.

"You holding up all right?" he asked. "You've got a lot of demands on you, empathically speaking."

"Yes, I'm fine," Kel said as she prepped her supplies. "If there's any problem, it's the other way. I killed the thing in the sea. Drained it, so I could swim back and not need air. The energy still… bounces under my skin. The challenge is to control it for something as slow as this."

Tony took that as his cue not to distract her. He watched in silence while she bathed the wound, then applied her fingertips for whatever transfer of neural energy enabled her to stimulate accelerated tissue growth.

(It had become… standard, this thing she could do. But that didn't mean he'd ever lost his respect for it. The version of herself that she'd unleashed on the battlefield — thrusting her hand into the heart of that monster and sucking the life out of it — that was what she'd been raised for. But this part, where she turned that power around and used it to rebuild things that were broken? _This_ she'd made for herself. To do, and be, something better. Tony, who was apparently having all sorts of feelings that night, felt that right down to his core.)

Then it was done, and he had another faint scar to add to the collection.

Kel stepped away and tossed the seaweed cloths she'd used into the trash, then washed up for hopefully the last time that night. "You did well," she said. Off his look, she added, "In the swordfight."

"I had a good teacher," Tony replied. "In the swordfighting."

She grinned, and hopped up on the table next to him. "Also, I think you don't have to worry anymore about how well the vibranium prosthesis works in combat."

"Yeah, you seem to have the hang of that one," Tony said. "I didn't expect it to be field-tested so soon, but I'm glad it held up."

"It's good work. Thank you." Then she added, "Peter will be all right. He knows he can talk to you. This helps so much."

"Yeah. I…" Tony paused. He needed — he knew this now — to get some separation from the intensity of the night's roller coaster of emotions before he could sort through the whole thing productively. Key facts for the moment: Peter was uninjured physically, and he had multiple sources of support emotionally. "Thanks," he said simply, and trusted her to understand the spectrum of things he meant by it.

Her quiet smile suggested that she did.

Tony wanted nothing more than to crawl back into bed, but that wasn't happening. Instead, he gestured vaguely in the direction of the outdoors and said, "I should go help with… something."

"I think the barrier is almost done," Kel said. "Shouldn't be too much more to do. I'll come with you, let Steve know everyone is all right, try to convince him to rest soon."

Steve. Yeah. Steve was having a rough night of his own, what with Natasha taking that fireball for him. Not his fault, of course, but he wasn't going to see it that way. Tony hoped Steve's teammates were keeping an eye on him. Everyone deserved to have someone in their corner.

 

* * *

 

With Jean out of commission, folks were looking to Steve to organize things, so that was what he did.

One of the practical problems that had been hanging over them since the beginning was how to send messages between widely separated sites on a planet with no radio. The solution that the group had agreed to and Tony had implemented was, more or less, a collection of souped-up bottle rockets — ones with enough fuel in them to travel from one site to the next before releasing a flare. The rockets had been tested between the camp and the beta site; Tony had dialed down the fuel reserves a little for the shorter trip between camp and garrison.

The flares came in two colors: blue for "be on the alert" and red for "run like hell". This was, so far, a blue flare scenario. Steve retrieved one from the northeast warehouse where they were storing explosives, lined it up, and set it off.

Then the boundary fence had to be repaired; then the corpses from this most recent piece of combat had to be recycled; then the wreckage of the buildings searched for anything salvageable; then new sleeping arrangements made. The Minotaurs' barracks had long since been aired out and declared safe for human habitation, and short of bunking down next to the horses, they were running low on options. Kel pointed out that one of the buildings had been empty when she'd first infiltrated the compound, due to its residents being on the night shift, and therefore she'd never poisoned it. Steve hoped that Jean would see that as an adequate compromise. He sent Team One to pick up bed linens.

These various tasks took until dawn. The next supply convoy had been scheduled to depart for camp at first light — and yes, Steve recognized the urgency, especially given that the garrison plainly wasn't a safe harbor. But the attack had taken its toll on everyone. He declared a half-day delay and told Gab, Frank and Pavel to wash up and get a few hours' sleep first.

Kel also split off to check on her patients, leaving only Steve, Sam and Tony still on their feet. There were certain basic chores that were required to keep the garrison running, many of them having to do with the livestock. Tony usually managed to find some critical piece of science that only he could handle every time the subject of mucking out the stables came up. This time, however, he pitched in with only muttered complaints.

(Tony, who'd saved his life or near enough, with a sword. Steve had no idea what to do with that image.)

The chores eventually came to an end. It was clear that the next order of business for all of them was a shower and clean clothes. They agreed to meet up at the medical ward afterward and get an update from Kel.

The Mjentur shower building, having been built to accommodate a staff of over one hundred, was large enough for the three of them to lose track of each other. Steve hoped that Sam and Tony took their time. For his part, he did the bare minimum amount of scrubbing required to render himself presentable again, threw on his clothes, and bolted — as much as he was capable of it — to meet with Kel, alone.

This body, while more user-friendly than the original model in many ways, was _not good enough_. He couldn't move, he couldn't hit, he couldn't keep up… nothing _worked_. Not when he needed it to. Not when his _team_ needed it to.

And then Natasha… Natasha had… the _smell_ of it, and that terrifying, blank look she got only when she was at the furthest extremes of her endurance.

All because Steve hadn't been able to handle a couple of lizard soldiers.

He could fill the days with training. He could distract himself, minute by minute, with tiny pieces of progress. But the attack that night had stripped away the distractions and left the truth: there was nothing left of him. His friends had risked their lives — would continue to do so — for an empty shell.

The door to the dining room, which was now the treatment room, stood open, and Steve burst in. He had a preamble vaguely in mind — something to convey that the other two were right behind him, and that the only reason he wasn't asking after the injured was so Kel wouldn't have to repeat herself. But when he opened his mouth, the only words that came out were the two that mattered.

" _Fix me_."

Kel was on the opposite side of the room, in the process of cleaning some instruments. She set down a clamp and turned to face him, but didn't respond immediately. Her expression was carefully blank.

"I don't care what it takes," Steve said. His feet carried him to the side of the operating table. "Do whatever you need to do. Just—"

"Steve…"

"And _don't_ tell me there's nothing. I don't want to hear that again! There _has_ to be something! Rip it all out of me and let the serum rebuild. _Anything_ — just figure it out and _fix me_!"

"Steve, please sit down."

" _No_!" His fist pounded the table before he could stop it. "I can't sit down, I can't wait anymore! Just _do_ it, get it out of me, _get it_ —"

" _Sit down_ ," she thundered, and his knees buckled of their own accord. If there hadn't been a chair behind him, he would have ended up on the floor.

And then something sort of… snapped back into focus.

The last few seconds replayed themselves in his mind, like he was watching from across the room. Shame engulfed him, cold and bitter.

"My God," he whispered. "Kel, I am _so_ sorry. You didn't deserve… I don't know what just happened. I'm sorry."

Humiliation bowed his head low. Steve stared at the floor as her footsteps approached and she came alongside him. Her hand touched down lightly on his shoulder.

"Not unexpected," she said. Her tone was neutral, and Steve was glad of it: pity might have killed him. "But I'm happier if the punch, at least, doesn't happen again."

(An unworthy piece of him wanted to quibble with her over the definition of a punch. He quashed that thought hard.)

"Of course," he said instead. "You're right. I should—"

"You don't have to go." Her hand flexed a little against his shoulder — not nearly enough to prevent him from rising, just to punctuate her point. "It was impolite, and we agree on this, so now we move on."

Steve sank back down onto the chair again, and leaned forward to rub his face with both hands. He had nowhere else to go anyway.

"The practical question isn't really the question," Kel continued, "but I'll answer anyway. The threads built themselves out of parts of you, and now they _are_ part of you. Muscles, bones. If I tore it all out, there'd be nothing left."

Yeah. He knew that already. He'd had versions of this conversation with Aaron before. "So what is the real question?" he asked her.

She squeezed his shoulder again, then folded her legs and sat down beside him where he could look her in the face, if he wanted. "I think I know," she replied, "but I don't think I should be the one to say it. So try something else, see where it goes."

That was about the last thing Steve wanted to do. But maybe this was one of those things that was supposed to help, somehow.

"You're a soldier," he said. "I know your culture doesn't use that term, but it's the best way I can describe how you would fit into mine. So, as a soldier: if you were the one captured, would you expect a rescue?"

"No," she said, unflinchingly. "In the situation, I would expect to die. Some war leaders I served would take no time to think about it. If it's Tor, my father, I think he would at least look for a different solution. But if a rescue damaged the tactical position so badly, he would spend my life. This is his right." She leaned in a little and tilted her head to catch his eyes. "But Steve… there's a reason you humans still look at me and sometimes see a monster."

"No one thinks you're a monster."

"Yes, you do. It's all right." She gave him a gentle smile. "If it was one of the others — Natasha, Sam, Clint. Wanda. And I said that they had to be left behind, which is what you expect me to say. Would you do it?"

"No, of course not."

"Then why is it different?"

_Because there was nothing left to rescue_. Steve just shook his head.

"If it was Wanda, and you brought her back but she lost her powers. Would you regret it?"

Of course not. Of _course_ not. But that wasn't… he understood why she would think of it that way, but the two scenarios wasn't the same.

"You can't compare them like that," he said. "Wanda… I don't want to talk about her history behind her back, but… she deserves a normal life. She would have things to go back to."

"You don't?"

_An era seventy years dead. No Avengers. Bucky, who's safe, who needs scientists, not me._

"You think you deserve to die," Kel said quietly. "You know your friends won't agree with you, but you thought I might. Which is also a little impolite, if you think about it."

His face went flaming hot, and he had to look away. " _God_. That's… I'm sorry, this was—"

Her hand clasped his forearm firmly. "They value your life, not for what you can do but because it's yours," she said. "So do I. Maybe try to respect the choice, even if you don't like the consequences."

_Allow Barnes the dignity of his choice_. "I don't know," Steve said, "how many more choices like that I can bear."

Kel glanced past him, toward the door. "Sam and Tony are almost here," she said, and climbed to her feet again.

Steve also jolted upright. "Uh… is it okay if—"

"You just got here," she told him. "Don't worry."

Better than he deserved. "Thanks."

Footsteps in the hallway, then Sam and Tony appeared.

"Oh, _there_ you are," Sam said to Steve. "I was starting to think you got lost."

"Nah, just trying to keep a step ahead," Steve replied. "Kel, how are our casualties doing?"

The three men spread out around the perimeter of the room, while Kel took a casual seat on the table and gave her report. Clint was showing no signs of complications from the concussion. Jean was recovering from surgery to repair the internal damage, and would need another day of bed rest until the skin and muscle could be healed. Natasha's burns had been debrided, cleaned and bandaged. Replacing the layers of skin would be slow, but straightforward.

"There is some nerve damage in the hand," Kel said. "Aaron has a better touch for this than I do. Up to Jean and the schedule, I think, if he comes here or Natasha goes there. But I don't want her to travel for four, maybe five days, until all the surface damage is repaired and there's no sign of infection. Also," she said, and gave a faint sigh, "all three will take time to recover strength. How much is hard to predict. A serious injury affects the whole body, even if it is healed quickly. While this happens, I expect them to complain a lot."

Sam glanced at Steve. "She's got us pegged pretty good, huh?"

"Thank you," Steve said to Kel. "Obviously we'd be dead in the water without your help. On multiple fronts. The injured have top priority — is there anything you need?"

"Time," she said. "This is all. No problem with supplies — the Mjentur had a lot of everything in storage."

"Good." Steve looked to either side of him, checking if Sam or Tony had further questions. When none presented themselves, he moved on to the other obvious topic that, oddly, none of them had yet discussed. "Is there anything you can tell us about last night's attacking force?"

"Yeah," Tony said, "like who, why, and what the _fuck_ was with the squid that shoots plasma balls?"

"I can answer some of this," Kel said. "The ones with scales call themselves—" and she made a protracted noise in the back of her throat that Steve had no hope of replicating.

"Yeah, we're not calling them that," Tony said. "They're Geckos."

"Geckos, really?" Sam said. "I thought they looked more like monitors."

"Dammit, Wilson, I took your side on the leopard thing, why are you coming after me?"

"Geckos are cute. Those guys? Not cute."

"Did you just say geckos are—"

"Guys?" Steve said. "Let's focus. Kel?"

Kel blinked in puzzlement a few times before shrugging it off. "Whatever word you want to use. I know the race. Nyth weapons are rare, expensive. Usually they couldn't afford them, but sometimes they trade for them by doing other work. I saw the smaller version of the energy weapon before. The larger version in the water — that one was new. If I have to guess why the… Geckos are on this planet, this is why: the Nyth built a better version of their weapon, they work to pay the debt, and now they test it."

Sam said, "So they must have passed through this place at some point. Maybe arranged payment or testing facilities or whatever with the scorpions who used to be stationed here. They sent their sea squid ahead to signal that they were inbound, and instead they found that the garrison had been occupied by enemy forces."

"Taking us out themselves might have earned them some extra credit with the local arms dealers," Tony concluded. "Tough break."

"Yeah, that didn't pan out for 'em."

"There were a few survivors," Steve said. "Where would they go?"

"Gotta be the research outpost, right?" Sam said. "To warn the scorpions there, maybe pick up some reinforcements and try again?"

"Yes, I think this makes sense," Kel said. "Not much else to the south, from what I know."

"Could they try again?" Tony asked her. "Given that we've got, among other things, a _you_?"

"Depends on what they want to do," she replied. "Jean and I continue to believe that the Nyth will not want to destroy the entire human population, as long as they believe they can get most of them back. But we're a small number, and now carry a huge debt. If they decide to destroy us, they can bring kethyshi. Or they have the moss, or maybe other weapons I didn't see."

"Or they could go around us and target the labor camp," Steve added. "If they capture enough civilians, we lose."

"They'd have a tough time making it past Wanda," Sam said.

"I'd rather not give them the chance." He turned back to Kel. "Let's assume that the… Geckos are headed for the outpost. You've made that trip, right? What's the route like?"

"There is a path," she said. "It turns from the main road, aims south and west. Not as big, but enough that the horses would help you to catch up. I think this is what you want to do next, yes?"

"It'll be a lot safer for all of us if they never make their report," Steve said.

"I agree," Kel said, "but I can't leave right now. The injured still need close attention."

"I know," he replied. "You have to stay here. If we do this, it'll be just the two of us. Sam?"

Sam exhaled slowly. "I'm onboard with the objective, but a team of two doesn't have safety in numbers. Every multi-legged freak this planet's got is going to be gunning for us."

Tony cleared his throat loudly. "Excuse me — 'two'? Are we having trouble counting? Or am I not a part of 'us' these days — it's so hard to keep track."

"Tony, no, I just—" Steve's face had gone hot again. "I mean, _yes_ , of course you're 'us', but you're more valuable here."

"Meaning I'm _less_ valuable in the field."

_Dammit_. There was a minefield of potential offense dead ahead of him. Steve ventured cautiously forward. "This just isn't the sort of thing you're used to," he said. "It's going to be dangerous."

Nope — landmine.

"Really?" Tony said. "I'm _shocked_. The fourteen point seven months I've spent in this hellhole have left me completely unprepared for that stunning revelation."

Steve drew breath for a retort that was going to be a hell of a lot less diplomatic, but Kel held out a warning hand in his direction. At the same time, she said, quietly, "Tony."

He looked away, and visibly bit back his temper.

"Yeah, we're off to a _great_ start," Sam muttered.

"Look," Tony said, with less attitude, "I'm not exactly thrilled about this turn of events either. But you're short on time and you need numbers."

Steve also tried to dial back the ire a bit. "Tactically speaking," he said, "you have specialized knowledge, which means you shouldn't be risked on a small op like this."

"Engineer, remember? I don't build systems with single points of failure. Alisha knows everything I do about the explosives. Besides, I'd rather take the risk of another fun forest hike than be eaten by one of those damned jaguars."

"Hey!" Sam said.

" _Monitors_? Are you kidding me?"

"All right," Steve said quickly. "Tony, if you're sure you want to go—"

"I'm not," he interjected. "But I'm sure you need all hands."

"Then we should leave as soon as possible."

"In this case," Kel said, "'as soon as possible' is when you told Team One to leave, and not sooner."

"She's not wrong," Sam added. "We might as well be rested to start with. We won't get much rest out there."

Steve looked around, and met obstinacy on all sides. "Early afternoon, then," he said. "If we're lucky, we still can catch up to them within a day."

The meeting broke up. Sam and Tony, still arguing about lizards, left to grab some food and some shuteye. Steve lingered behind.

"Jean will hate this plan," Kel told him once they were alone.

"What do you think?"

"I also hate this plan. But I don't have a better one."

Steve wasn't a fan, either. But the surviving Geckos couldn't be allowed to warn the scorpions. That much was clear.

The last thing he wanted to do was resume their previous conversation (even though he probably owed her more apologies for the way he'd come unglued). Instead, he said, "I'd like to look in on Natasha. Is that all right?"

"Yes. Not for too long."

She hopped down from the table and started for the door.

And that was all Steve had intended to say, except somehow another question — one he'd kept buried in the deepest corners of his mind — broke containment and burst out of his mouth.

"The scorpions. The Nyth. Could they undo it?"

Kel turned back. Her expression wasn't cruel, even if her answer was. "It's possible. How many lives would you give them in exchange?"

They both knew the answer to that.

She led him down the hall to Natasha's door. "Not for too long," she repeated in a whisper, then left him alone.

This room, like all the others, was an office with a cot squeezed in. The desk chair had been turned around to face the cot, and Steve took a seat as quietly as he could.

Nat was sleeping. Her breathing was shallow and even. Her left sleeve had been cut away, and her arm was encased from shoulder to fingertips in some kind of thick, translucent film. Beneath it, distorted, Steve could see the mottled red burns covering her skin.

He leaned his elbows on his knees and rested his face in his hands.

"No, it wasn't."

He looked up sharply. "What?"

"Your fault," Natasha murmured. "You're dripping guilt, Rogers, and you need to knock it off. This wasn't your fault."

"That's not how I remember it."

"Your memory's not so good. Hazard of old age."

Steve gave a chuckle in spite of himself. "How are you holding up?"

Natasha gave a one-shouldered shrug without opening her eyes. "Kel is very big on pain management," she said. Her smile was sudden and unguarded. "These are the _good_ drugs. 'Sfun."

Steve wondered if anyone else on Earth had seen Nat loopy and lived to tell the tale. "I'm glad to hear it," he said. "I'll let you get back to sleep."

"No. Say the thing first."

"What?"

"You came in here to say something to me in my sleep, all broody and dramatic like you do." She rolled her uninjured wrist in a 'get on with it' way. "So say the thing. And it can't just be 'I'm sorry'. That's boring."

For a fleeting second, he wondered if he could just wait her out until she drifted off again. But no — she deserved better than that. She deserved the truth.

"During the battle," he said softly, "I… forgot. I forgot that my strength was gone. Can you believe that? It was just for a second, but—"

"But by then they'd split you off."

"Yeah." Steve was selfishly glad that she hadn't opened her eyes. He was too ashamed to face her disappointment. "That's why this happened to you — because of my mistake."

"You're an idiot."

"I know. I'm _so_ sorry—"

"For thinking I'd begrudge you this," she said, and this time she did open her eyes. "Steve. _Stop_. You are not a perfect fighting machine. You're human, and you've been through a _thing_. A _very serious thing_. The team is not about being flawless, it's about _supporting each other's things_."

She looked so deadly earnest. Steve bit down hard on the inside of his cheek until he could reply with a straight face. "I guess I didn't think of it in exactly those terms."

"Well. You learned something. Never too old to learn things." Her eyes drifted closed again. "Now go away and let me sleep."

He bent over her bedside and smoothed a lock of her hair back into place, then did as he was told.

 


	38. Chapter 38

"I hate this plan," Jean said.

"We thought you might," Steve replied, "but I don't see an alternative. If the scorpions—"

"Yes, you've made your case," she said with a wave of her hand. "You can't afford to wait until Kel can safely leave the wounded, and even if you could, her departure would leave the rest of us badly shorthanded should the transport ship put in an appearance." She pressed her lips together. "I _knew_ we were spread too thin."

She was right about that. With the ship's arrival hanging over them, Steve had serious qualms about leaving the garrison with only Kel in fighting condition. But the problems just compounded if the remaining scorpions got involved.

"I assume we have the go-ahead?" he said.

"Yes, you can leave whenever you're ready. And Steve?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't even _think_ about trying to take the outpost yourselves," she said. "Do not for one second entertain the thought. Is that clear?"

His chin came up. "Why are you—"

"Because if it were me, I would want to grind them out of existence with my bare hands," Jean said. "And you will get that chance, I promise you — when we can give the mission the time and resources it deserves. _Not_ on a whim because you were in the neighborhood."

The last thing Steve needed at that moment was for Jean to sit there in her cot and take potshots at his judgment. He bit his tongue until he could dial down his retort to, "You _do_ remember that this isn't my first war, right?"

"Well, it is mine," she said, "and I'm taking a hands-on approach. Stay away from the outpost."

 

* * *

 

The next supply convoy, comprising six teams of oxen, six fully loaded wagons, and an escort of four including Spider-Man, formed up at the western border after lunch. Tony let Peter know that he was due to depart soon thereafter, and the kid was, of all things, _fussing_ over him.

"Just be really careful, okay, Mr. Stark?" he said. "Especially at night. If you hear something rustling high up in the trees at night? That's probably a jellyfish. That's _bad_."

"That a fact," said Tony.

"Yeah. Oh, and the big spiders — not the spider-crabs, but the ones that Black Widow calls chimpanzees? — they like to attack from the trees, and they can jump a lot further than you think they can. But they also rattle as they move, so you can hear 'em when they get close, and they don't really chase you outside their territory."

"Uh-huh."

"And also—"

"Hey, Spider-Man!" Gab called from the head of the convoy. "We've got a schedule to keep. Shake a leg!"

He waved in acknowledgement, then turned back to Tony. "Okay, I gotta—"

"Go," Tony said. "I'll try to muddle through without you."

"See you in ten days!"

"We hope," Tony muttered once he was gone.

Jean wasn't in any condition to see the convoy off, so Kel came in her place. She handed a bundle of papers to Gab, which Tony knew contained a report on the Gecko incident for Wanda and the admin team. Then she and Tony opened the barrier.

Once the last wagon was past, Tony and Kel began the walk back. Tony had already gathered his gear, dressed for the occasion, and dropped off his knapsack by the barn. He was supposed to head back there to meet Sam and Steve, where they would load up three horses and depart.

A set of circumstances, he reminded himself, that he had not only volunteered for, but in fact argued his way into.

"Okay — quick yes or no question," he said to Kel. "In your opinion, have I made a terrible, terrible mistake?"

With furrowed brow and considerable hesitation, Kel ventured, "No?"

He sighed. "Thanks. Quality pep talk. Top-notch. Have you considered doing corporate gigs?"

"Why do you think you—"

"Because I'm wearing a _sword_!" he snapped, gesturing at the wretched thing where it was riding on his hip. "Because I am about to take _yet another hike_ through a _singularly_ unfriendly forest — demonstrating an alarming lack of pattern recognition, by the way — and my only weapon is a pointy strip of metal! What about this _doesn't_ read as a terrible mistake?"

"Tony, you should also have knives," Kel said, and changed course toward the residential sector. "Come with me."

"Yeah, that's not actually… addressing my primary point of concern."

Kel didn't share Jean's squeamishness over the buildings she'd poisoned (and corpses she'd created), and had made herself at home in one of the dorms that the humans weren't using. Tony followed her inside and let himself be festooned with additional pointy strips of metal from her personal collection, the inclusion of which improved his chances of survival by a fraction of a percentage point.

"Any other tips?" he asked when she was through.

"Steve and Sam both have more experience at this than you," Kel said. "If one of them says to do something, at least think about the possibility that they don't mean to insult."

"Uh-huh."

"Also. The brain—" and she gave him a friendly poke in the forehead "—works very fast. Usually this is good for you. But sometimes, all you need is one thing at a time."

"One thing at a time," he repeated. "I'll give it a try."

They tapped wrists, then Tony headed back to the barn where his camping buddies were waiting on him. "Seeing off the convoy," he said when Steve gave him a look.

Among the goodies they'd found at the garrison were saddles and bridles and so forth for the horses, a significant improvement over the facsimiles they'd rigged from blankets and belts. Sam and Steve had already selected three horses and gotten them outfitted. All Tony had to do was distribute his supplies between his knapsack and his assigned horse's saddlebags, then fall into line as the group headed for the newly repaired section of barrier behind the dorms.

Kel, continuing in her role as Jean's envoy, met them there.

"I wish I could tell you when to expect us back," Steve said to her.

"I know," Kel replied. "It depends on what the Geckos do. Do you have enough water?"

"Yeah, we'll make it to the river if we need to."

"Good." She subjected each of them to a look, then declared, "You're ready. Good luck."

Wrist taps were exchanged, then she left them to it.

"Before we go," Sam said, "I want to make one thing clear: I'm stocked up on all the local remedies, but I am not an empath and I can't make broken bones go away. Everyone got that?"

"Don't worry, Sam," Steve said. "No one's taking any unnecessary risks on this one." After an uncomfortable pause and some awkward shifting in place, he began, "Tony—"

But Tony cut to the chase. "I'm not a soldier, you guys are the ones with field experience, clear chain of command, you say 'jump'... was that the gist?"

"Pretty much," said Steve. "Will it be a problem?"

"Nope," Tony said, and gestured to the barrier. "Lead on."

 

* * *

 

Natasha was only lightly tethered to reality. The drugs were… quite lovely. She knew — because she was not allowed not to know, because there were certain things she was always required to know — that her condition was such that she was unable to adequately defend herself. And that was… not altogether acceptable, but also not as bad as it could have been, given the people around her.

Jean was walking, albeit slowly (floating really but that was the drugs, Natasha was almost positive). Good sign. Kel was at her side, hand beneath her elbow, and helped her sit down in the chair.

Natasha blinked as words wandered, variously. Meaning followed at a slower pace. Eventually enough of it arrived that she grasped the shape of the mission in progress.

Though perhaps it would turn out in retrospect that her priorities were a bit squishy.

"Huh," she said. "First combat mission with only men."

Jean leaned back in her chair. "Well, I'm sure they'll be fine."

"Yeah. They'll be fine."

 

* * *

 

The mission hit a snag almost immediately, and Sam didn't even know why the hell he was surprised.

One thing they had now that they hadn't had before was a set of maps. The Minotaurs had made detailed topographic maps of the territory surrounding the garrison, extending west to the labor camp and south to the river. Better yet, Jean had had the foresight to make copies and keep them in separate locations, so even though the originals had been blasted out of existence by a giant sea squid, the information hadn't been lost. Sam, Steve and Tony had spent their lunch hour studying the terrain and making plans.

The garrison, of course, was at sea level, while the labor camp was several hundred feet higher. The road that led between them held a consistent, gentle gradient along most of its length. Further south, however, the gradient got a lot less gentle. The sea-level terrain reached progressively further inland, and when the rise began, it took the form of steeper and steeper hills, and eventually cliffs.

The main road was marked on the map, and so was the path that led to the outpost. It branched off from the road maybe a day's walk from the garrison, bore mostly west for another day, gaining elevation, then meandered southwest until it reached the river.

The Geckos (he and Tony had come to an arrangement) had to be in a hurry. There were two schools of thought as to what that could mean, which broke down as the best guess and the long shot. Best guess — they booked it for the path. If that was the case, then all Team Humanity had to do was run them down.

But more and more, it was looking like the long shot.

The team started behind the southern perimeter, where the survivors had fled. Of the three of them, Steve had the most experience at tracking enemy soldiers through this kind of terrain, and he took point. The job wasn't taxing his abilities, though. The Geckos hadn't made any attempt to conceal their trail.

And the damned trail wasn't turning west. The Geckos had fled straight south, parallelling the shoreline, for over two miles and counting.

The team was on foot for the moment, leading the horses by the reins. Tony let go of his horse and took a drink from his canteen, then asked, "So at what point do we admit that these guys aren't headed for the road?"

"They could still turn," Steve said. "Maybe they wanted to give the garrison a wide berth."

"I don't know," said Sam. "This is about a mile and a half more cautious than I would have been."

"Does it matter?" Tony asked. "Whether they're going to veer for the road or make a run for the cliff— George, do you _mind_?"

That was the other problem: Tony's horse didn't like him. At least, that was Tony's version of it. Sam was pretty sure the horse was indifferent to the humans, but liked eating a lot more than he liked walking. As soon as Tony'd let go of the reins, George had wandered off and settled down with a fallen log between his claws, shredding it to get at the grubs inside. The long lizard tongue made slurping noises.

Tony stomped over and collected the reins again. George ignored this. "As I was _saying_ ," Tony growled, "it doesn't matter what the Geckos are planning. Our only choice is to go for the road regardless."

Steve frowned. "I agree that we'll have to turn soon. But if the Geckos are ahead of us, then we'll need to be alert for traps and ambushes. I'd like to be sure before we decide that they're not."

This was the long shot. A simple straight-line path from the garrison to the outpost didn't climb into the hills at all, but kept to the lowlands, skirting the base of the cliff until it reached the waterfall. Only two problems: that nice, level route crossed through giant leopard territory, and it didn't end at the outpost but a couple hundred feet below it. But if the Geckos had a solution to the leopard problem — or were desperate enough to chance it — and if they were better rock climbers than the humans were, then the southern route could shave a full day off their trip.

Since Sam's team did not have a solution to the leopard problem, they couldn't follow. Their only option was to break off pursuit and head for the road, and hope that the horses gave them enough of a speed advantage to make up for the longer trip and get them to the outpost first.

Sam said, "If we take the road, it's what, a six-day trip on foot, more like three by horse if we're lucky?"

"Three or four," Steve said. "And the Geckos can make their route in four or five."

"Then we've still got a bit of a margin if you want to keep chasing them, but I'm putting in my vote now — they're going south. Which, among other things, means that Jean's gonna be pissed."

"I warned her that this was a possibility. Tony?"

"Don't look at me," Tony said. "George is the skeptic. _Up_ , George. I thought they trained these things."

Steve's eyes narrowed as he studied the boot prints and bent branches ahead of them, already several hours old. "We'll follow for another mile," he said. "If they haven't turned by then, we'll have to."

They followed. The Geckos didn't turn. So it was off to the races.

Sam couldn't help but compare with the rescue mission, way back when. The four of them had been harassed by predators almost from the moment they'd crossed the boundary, whereas his current team had so far passed a quiet afternoon. Part of it, he hoped, was that three people and three horses made a more intimidating target. However, the presence of the detector bushes suggested that they were still within the territory that the Minotaurs had kept clear. Once they got further out into no man's land, the trip was probably going to get tougher.

They passed by a particularly thick collection of the bushes, and Tony paused to pull a knife from his belt and poke at a cluster of buds.

"Part of it is scent," he said, apparently to himself.

"Part of what?" Sam asked.

"The scorpions' computer-tree. Tree-computer. Whatever." He sheathed the knife. "It's got the leaves that change colors, and don't even talk to me about how ridiculous _that_ is, but there's not enough information to run a facility that size. Not with all their security systems. So there have to be readouts in a different form, and scent is my best guess."

"So we could have tracked the Geckos from the control room if we had the noses for it?"

"Yeah, probably," Tony said. "What I wouldn't give for a look at the scorpions' sensory apparatus."

"Not this trip," said Steve.

Tony studied him for a moment before he said, neutrally, "Not arguing."

Sam knew about (and agreed with) Jean's edict to Steve about not attacking the outpost. Frankly, if there were any other options besides sending Steve back to that place… But there weren't, and at least Tony wasn't poking at the very obvious sore spot.

There were certain perks to traveling with an empath — perks that they were having to do without. Like, for instance, knowing where the wildlife was before stumbling onto it. In this case, it was just a cadre of quadri-hedgehogs, but there were a _lot_ of the suckers. And while they seemed happy enough to root in the dirt and ignore the humans, Sam had been on this planet long enough not to assume that they were _safe_.

"That is… a lot of legs and a lot of spikes," Tony said. "What do you say we— _dammit_ , George."

The horses were omnivores, which made it easy to keep them fed, but also gave goldbrickers like George all the more excuses to slack off. George had taken a seat next to a particularly leafy bush and begun stripping the leaves. Experience suggested that he would not be moved before he was done.

"Or we could take a break," Tony sighed.

George stretched his wings and gave a few contented flaps, smacking Tony in the face in the process.

A break wasn't a bad idea. They dropped their packs a cautious distance from the hedgehogs, tethered the horses (redundant in George's case), and took a seat.

After everyone had had a chance to drink some water and stretch their legs, Steve said to Tony, "You handled a sword pretty well last night. Kel's been teaching you?"

Tony scoffed. "You don't know a damned thing about me, Rogers. I could have been fencing since I was six."

"Were you?"

"No, of course not. Kel's been teaching me."

Steve's mouth twisted, but he didn't meet antagonism with more of the same.

Tony noticed it, too. "It's a popular weapon in her culture," he added, in less combative tones, "but not because it's all they've got. I've talked to her about her homeworld, and it's not like she showed up on Earth and was wowed by the horseless carriage — her people have tech. It's just that when it comes to war, they really like carving up their enemies with swords."

"Your buddy Thor really likes bashing his enemies with a big hammer," Sam said. "I guess every culture eventually goes retro."

"Yeah. How much further until we pick up the road?"

Sam reached for his pack to get the map, but it was Steve who answered.

"About four more miles," he said. "There's a ridge just ahead of us that we'll have to swing south to avoid, but aside from that we can head straight northwest. If nothing goes wrong, we should reach the road well before dark."

Sam and Tony both turned to stare.

"I can see the map," Steve said, and waved at the invisible bulletin board that was apparently floating in front of his face.

"Could you always do that, or is it a Cap thing?" Sam asked.

"I always had a good visual memory, but the serum made it better."

Tony cautiously observed, "So you did get to keep a few things."

"A few things." Steve gave that self-deprecating shrug of his. "I don't have asthma. My hearing isn't enhanced anymore, but it isn't as bad as it used to be. Same with eyesight." He paused, and looked down at his hands. One thumb scrubbed at the other palm. "The healers… uh, they tell me the serum is still trying to make repairs. It's why I have to eat twice the standard daily ration. And why it's taking so long to build strength again. The serum attacks the threads, the threads rebuild themselves…"

"And it's all running off the same battery," Tony said.

"Yeah."

"Well. Once you get back, I'm sure Wakanda's biotech facilities will be more than up for the job of getting it out of you." Tony blinked innocently in the face of two startled glares, and added, "Oh, I'm sorry, was I not supposed to know where you were hiding?"

"How long have you—"

"Since like two seconds after you broke out, Wilson. Where else could you have gone? T'Challa's the one who wouldn't let the Zemo news get swept under the rug. Naturally he'd be sympathetic."

_Fantastic_. "Does Ross know?"

"Well, it was staggeringly obvious, so no, I'm guessing he doesn't."

"Actually," Steve said, still addressing his hands, "T'Challa wasn't willing to guarantee that he'd allow us back in. He put it more diplomatically, but basically, if we screw this up…"

Tony looked sharply at Sam, who gave him a nod.

"That I didn't know," he admitted. "Another reason not to screw this up, I guess."

Not that they needed more reasons, but… yeah.

The quadri-hedgehogs, which had been casually milling about and digging for bugs, suddenly and collectively picked up and started walking.

Sam pointed and asked, "Anyone else think that's a bad sign?"

Not only were they walking, they were forming up into a cluster. The littlest hedgies were shunted to the middle of the pack, which was ringed by the big bruisers. Sam, Steve and Tony took the hint, and stood and drew their weapons. Behind them, the horses also stood together, quiet and alert.

Moments later, the problem appeared: a trio of Komodo dragons. They charged out of the forest and broadsided the hedgehog formation, which split in half and reformed as smooth as oil drops on water.

In a rare stroke of luck, the Komodos ignored the humans entirely. The venom spitter circled to cut off the hedgehogs' retreat, curled its lips back, and sprayed. A spattering of acid sizzled against the spines of the defensive ring, leaving the bodies undamaged.

The tank-dragon charged again from the side, and again the group of hedgehogs split up in response. The dragon swung its massive tail as it passed, trying to break up the defensive formation. One half of the cluster held firm, but a gap formed in the other half — just for a second, but it was enough for the third member of the trio to dart in and snare a baby hedgehog by the leg. The poor thing squealed as it was dragged off. The dragon took a chomp out of its belly, then went back for seconds.

"Let's get out of here before they try that trick on us," Sam said quietly. "Stay together, nice and easy."

Men and horses backed off until they were too far away to see or hear the conflict. Then they backed off a whole lot more.

"So those were the Komodo dragons?" Steve asked once it felt safe to talk.

"Your first ones?" Sam asked, and got two nods. "Yeah, that was them. They like bare rocks for their dens — that could be the ridge you were talking about."

"It's possible," said Steve.

"They also like to live in big groups. However wide a margin you were planning, let's make it wider."

They detoured well out of their way. It was another hour before Steve started to angle them north — the opposite direction from their eventual goal, but reaching the road as quickly as possible would save them time in the long run.

In daylight, the jellyfish weren't that tough to spot, and the team skirted a few. Other than that, they didn't get any grief from the wildlife for the rest of the afternoon, and they reached the road with daylight to spare. The horses were pressed into service then, and they put in some solid mileage west before calling a halt at sunset.

The first order of business after they stopped was to take care of the horses. Each one had its saddle and bridle taken off and replaced with a light-weight harness, which got hooked to a generous hitching line. Sam's horse, which hadn't shown enough of a personality to earn a name, bore this process placidly, then wandered off to graze. George, meanwhile, put his head over Tony's shoulder and watched carefully while Tony was tying his line to a tree, like he had his doubts about Tony's knotting technique.

"Thank you, George, your contribution was invaluable," Tony said, and ducked away from him.

It wasn't too hard to settle into the routines that had been established on the reconnaissance mission. They set up their campsite in the middle of the road, and discussed watch rotations over dinner. Sentry duty was boring as hell, and for whoever had midwatch, it meant getting two naps instead of solid sleep. Sort of predictably, they all volunteered for the middle shift; Steve pulled rank to break the tie.

The weather in this place was bizarrely uniform. Sam had been there for over four months, and there had been no seasonal variation at all. It was mid-sixties during the day, dropping to low fifties overnight — chilly, but well within the specs of the gear they'd brought from Earth.

"Almost no axial tilt," Tony said when Sam remarked on it. "We're in the northern hemisphere, maybe fortyish degrees of latitude, based on the angle of the sun. So we don't get the direct rays that they would at the equator, but it's consistent across the year."

"No seasons," Sam said. "No moon, which means no tides. I don't know — it creeps me out. A whole planet shouldn't be this _static_."

"Good for plant-based tech," Tony noted. "Your overhead light isn't going to die off from an early frost."

"I suppose."

Tony jerked forward suddenly as George butted him in the back. "What _is_ it, George?"

"You know the horse doesn't speak English, right?" Sam asked.

"The horse is not a _horse_ ," Tony retorted. "It is a giant lizard with hooves and wings and sparkly scales. The horse is _ridiculous_ , and the horse is presently trying to stick its head down my jacket. George, if it's not too much trouble—"

"Quiet a second," Steve said. "Does anyone else hear a rattle?"

_Oh shit_.

They stilled. A moment later, Sam heard it too: the tell-tale rattle of an approaching chimpanzee.

"Up there," he said, and pointed. "Weapons out and stay together — these guys are not fun."

They all scrambled to their feet and closed ranks. A firm shove sent George trotting back to join his fellows, who were clustered together, nervously huffing and flapping. Sam couldn't blame them.

Tony asked, "This is the thing that nearly took Barton's leg off, right?"

"Yeah — have you seen—"

"Yeah, one showed up when—" He broke off with a glance at Steve. "We saw it. Giant spider with pincers. Kel killed it."

"I hope you were taking notes."

The rattle was closing in and descending. Sam squinted up into the branches, looking for movement. They'd made camp in the road for exactly this reason: at least the thing couldn't drop down on their heads.

_There_. It was picking its way down from branch to branch through a tree several yards ahead of them. Its many eyes glinted in the low light.

Tony's hands fidgeted on the hilt of his sword. He and Steve were both using broadswords taken from the Minotaurs, and Sam had his spear. Sam and Steve had been training together on their retro weapons for a couple months now, and Steve was a steady presence on his right. Tony, to his left, was a question mark.

"We know they can jump, right?" Tony said. "This is a known phenomenon?"

Steve glanced at him. "How far?"

Then they got a demonstration.

The monster sailed out into the air, and all three of them ducked and swiped. Sam's spear jolted in his hands as the point scored across its carapace, but the blow did no serious damage. The monster tumbled down the road.

"By the way," Tony asked, "do we actually know how to kill this thing?"

"Put holes in it until it stops moving," Sam said.

"Great."

The monster righted itself, clacked its pincers and rattled its fangs, and skittered at them again. Sam had another half-second to think about what all of them training together would have meant — that they would hae understood each other's moves and known how to present a united offense. Then the monster dodged right and Tony dashed out to meet it.

Steve had to check his own charge as Tony cut in front of him. Tony slashed back and forth at the massive pincers, doing no damage but keeping them busy. Sam and Steve circled the thing and targeted its legs. Sam put a dent in one of its knees and it rounded on him in response, and then he was backing off fast and fending off its claws with his spear. Faster and faster it snapped and he blocked, until Tony struck the same weak knee and severed the leg.

The monster switched targets in an instant and now Tony was the one in retreat. His ankle wobbled when he hit the edge of the road, and it was just enough distraction for the monster to catch the sword in its claw and yank it away.

Steve took a very Steve-like approach to the problem, in that he goddamned took a running leap and landed on the spider's back. With both hands he stabbed down with his sword. But the monster bucked at the same time and Steve's balance wasn't what it used to be. His strike went off-center and was mostly deflected by the carapace, and a second later he hit the ground.

The monster charged and so did Sam. He thrust his spear forward and caught its fangs on the point just before Steve could be perforated. He tried to turn the block into a slice, but the monster retreated too quickly and he didn't do much damage. But at least it gave Tony and Steve enough time to get their weapons back and reform the line.

The monster backed off, clacking angrily. Sam's spearpoint glistened with venom from his tangle with the fangs.

"Come _on_ ," Tony said. "There's gotta be easier meals out there than us."

"You'd think, but these guys have an attitude problem."

Steve said, "We need a plan of attack."

Tony shot him a glare. "Looked like your plan just now was 'attack'."

"And it didn't get me anywhere, did it? Tony, you and I—"

"Incoming!" Sam snapped, and they scattered again, all taking swipes at the damned thing as it rushed them. Sam tangled with another leg but couldn't get the angle to slice through it, and the other two fared no better.

This wasn't working and they knew it.

Steve tried again. "Tony, you—"

But Tony ignored him and bolted out in front of the monster again, because this time it was heading for the horses.

"Sam, go for the eyes!" Steve ordered, and swung around to join Tony.

The two of them didn't have it. They were too busy checking where the other one was to keep the spider corralled, and yeah, Sam would have _loved_ to get a kill shot in and end this thing, but the monster wasn't letting anything get past its pincers, and seconds later it had snagged Tony's sword again and torn it out of his hands.

" _Shit_ ," Tony snapped. "Okay — new plan, but I need a minute. Keep it busy!"

"What are you—" But Steve broke off when he nearly got a faceful of spider, and by the time he'd fought the thing back, Tony had vanished somewhere behind the horses.

"We can't keep this up much longer," Steve said to Sam. "Through the eyes and into the brain — you're the only one who has the reach."

"Trying."

They were both trying. They tried to the tune of a second severed leg, and now at least the monster was visibly limping. Maybe — _maybe_ — they could wear the damned thing down. If no one else lost a weapon, if no one got—

"Hey!" Tony shouted, and stepped from behind a tree. He flung his arms wide and called to the spider, "You want an easy meal? Come and get it!"

Tony had no weapon. What he had instead was a length of rope in his hands — a hitching line, now looped into a snare and thrown over a branch. The monster rushed him, and just as it got within reach, Tony tossed the snare over its claw and hauled down on the other end of the rope.

The monster went up, snapping at him with its free claw as it went. But it couldn't stop Tony's weight from pulling it clean off the ground.

Sam and Steve were right behind, and with sword and spear they put holes in the thing until it stopped moving.

With a groan of relief, Tony dropped the rope and sagged back against the tree. "Kel made that look a lot easier," he said. "I think hers was sleepy. Have I mentioned that I hate this planet?"

"Nice work," Steve said. "Next time, a word or two about what you're planning—"

"You're _complaining_ to me now?"

"I'm just saying, if I don't know what my team is doing—"

"You didn't give us a head's-up when you jumped on the damn thing's back, but when _I_ —"

"That's not the—"

" _Hey_!" Sam snapped. "First thing — we need to secure whichever horse is running loose. Second thing — we can't camp here with spider blood all over the place, or whatever it is spiders leak when you cut their legs off. Third thing — your teamwork sucks and it's gonna get me killed."

That shut them up for a nice long stretch.

Eventually, Steve asked, "Just you?"

"Both of you, too, but that part doesn't bother me as much," Sam said. "Sort it out."

Sheepish as schoolboys, Steve and Tony started on the list of chores. Steve headed after George, who hadn't gone far. Tony tugged the rope down from the tree, and crouched over the dead spider to untie the snare from its claw, turning his back to Sam in the process.

His _injured_ back. "Whoa," Sam said. "Fourth thing — Tony, you're bleeding."

"Yeah, I got nicked," he said, and stood up to take custody of his horse.

"No, you got gouged. Sit down."

"Sitting down isn't next on the list," he said. "I think you'll find that sitting down is more like twelfth on the list."

"Tony—"

"One thing at a time. We've got the horses, now we need a new campsite, hopefully one with fewer giant spiders. Let's go."

He had a point, unfortunately. It looked like the spider's claw had taken a chunk out of him, but it wasn't life-threatening. So they finished gathering their gear, and headed west. After half an hour of hiking, they repeated the exercise of hitching the horses and making themselves comfortable in the middle of the road.

Among the supplies they'd packed were a few of the lamps that looked like little pumpkins. Sam cracked the stem of one and set it down beside him, then unpacked his first aid kit.

"You gonna let me take a look at your back now?" he asked Tony.

"Apparently I am." Moving stiffly, Tony shrugged his way out of his jacket and shifted to sit in front of Sam.

The lamp gave off a respectable amount of light once it got going. Steve sat some distance away so as not to lose his night vision. Sam double-checked that he had everything he expected to need — gloves, gauze and bandages, antiseptic gel (okay, slime, but 'gel' sounded more hygienic), topical anesthetic, sutures. Tony reached back and hitched up his shirt.

And Sam froze.

Just for a second, because he was a goddamned professional and he should have known better, but it was long enough for Tony to notice.

Tony looked over his shoulder. "Wha— oh _shit_ , I forgot about the fucking…" He gave an aggravated sigh, which was well deserved. "Yes, fine, have a nice long gawk."

Sam flinched. "Sorry, man. Seriously. I'm not gawking."

Steve hadn't asked, but he had looked over curiously, and Tony noticed that, too.

"My whip scars," he said acerbically. "I'm told they're quite impressive. And anyway," he added to Sam, "aren't you the one who uncovered Jean's little misadventure?"

"I never saw the scars," Sam said. "That was your boy Spider-Man. And Jean wouldn't say if the same thing happened to you."

"Yeah. Well. It did."

Sam narrowed his focus to the job at hand. The spider's claw had put a long slash down Tony's back and side. Not too deep — it looked like Tony'd twisted away from the worst of it — but it was going to need careful watching for the next few days, and it had to hurt like hell.

"I'll numb this up before I start stitching," Sam told him, "but it's still going to sting."

"Charming. Can't wait."

Tony leaned forward over his knees and took some slow breaths while Sam cleaned out the wound. Upon closer examination, most of it was shallow enough that butterfly bandages would do the job. There was a gaping stretch mid-back, though, where the pincer had first struck. Sam wanted to make sure that it closed cleanly and stayed that way.

Steve was at least trying to watch the perimeter, but his glances back in Tony's direction weren't all that subtle.

"What?" Tony asked sharply the next time Steve looked over and then averted his eyes.

"Nothing. Sorry."

(Dear _Lord_ , these two.)

Tony sighed. "Look, I'm not going anywhere and I could use something else to think about. What's on your mind?"

Sam had some opinions as to whether this was a good idea (hint: no, it was _not_ a good idea), but if the two of them wanted to work on their communication skills on a subject this fraught, there wasn't much he could do about it. He smoothed a generous layer of anesthetic salve over the cut and started prepping his sutures.

Steve said cautiously, "I'm just… a little surprised that Jean would let something like that happen. Going through it herself is one thing, but if it's someone else on the line…"

"She tried," Tony said, and took another quick breath when Sam set the needle to his skin. "She had Frank try and warn me off. But it was early days — about a month after the Champaign portal — and she wasn't ready to trust me with who she was or what she was planning. Given that I was picking fights with the guards and otherwise making a nuisance of myself, I can't really blame her for it. And I wasn't ready to trust a couple vague mentions of 'twenty months' and 'we have a plan', so… there it was."

Sam had a close-up view of the consequences of 'there it was'. Kind of amazing, when he thought about it, that Tony and Jean had become so close.

"That was why I never picked up on the timeline issue," Tony added. "I'd been here for a month when it happened, and I just assumed Jean's had been about the same. A month for Kel to get herself into position was tight but not impossible."

"She got that one past all of us," said Steve. "All but Natasha."

"Yeah."

And if he'd just left it there, things probably would have been okay. But Steve was Steve, and he always had to take that one extra step.

It was an innocuous enough comment to start with. "This might not mean much," Steve said, "but I'm sorry."

"Whatever," Tony said shortly. "I survived. Ancient history."

"I mean, I'm sorry you had to go through that alone."

"I'd hardly call it 'alone', Rogers — there were a hundred twenty people and forty Minotaurs staring at me."

Sam could hear the warning notes loud and clear: Tony was done with this topic.

" _I mean_ ," Steve said again, "the team should have been with you. If we'd all come through together in the first place, a lot of things would have been different."

"Except I'm the one who ripped us apart, right?" Tony said acridly, and Sam put down the damned suture needle because this was about to go off the rails. "When I signed the Accords — wasn't that your diagnosis? So I guess I just got what was coming to me."

"Jesus _Christ_ , Stark, are you that desperate to pick a fight?"

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?"

"Expressing my fucking regret!" Steve snapped. "Can I please just comment on what a fucked up situation this is without you taking it as a personal fucking attack?"

There was a startled pause.

"Wow," Tony said after a while. "You _do_ know the F-word."

Steve rolled his eyes. "I know words that would turn your ears blue, Tony — I was in the US fucking Army. _God_. You never…"

"What, I never what?"

"You never got past the propaganda reels," he said. "It's like you were only expecting the character. You couldn't see the person." He sighed and looked away. "Maybe it was my fault, too. Maybe I was trying too hard to play the character. I don't know."

Tony had no response to that.

Sam looked back and forth between them. "You boys got it out of your system now? Anyone mind if I finish this?"

"Sorry, Sam."

"Sorry, Sam."

"How's it going back there?" Tony asked.

"It'll go a lot faster with less bickering," Sam told him. "You want some more freezing?"

"I mean, if you've got some handy."

Steve and Tony both settled down into silence. Sam reapplied the topical, and Tony's muscles unknotted a little as it kicked in.

But before he got back to work, Sam had one more thing to say. "Tomorrow morning, we're going right back to basics," he said. "What are the predators, how do they attack, and what do we plan to do about it — including who goes left, who goes right, and who pulls ridiculous stunts like jumping on the back of a giant spider."

Steve, unwisely, ventured, "Out of curiosity, who—"

" _No one_ jumps on the back of a giant spider," Sam snapped.

"Got it," Steve said meekly. "We'll pull it together."

They'd better. Otherwise this was going to be a short trip.

 

* * *

 

Breakfast the next morning was a silent affair, broken only by Tony's grumbling when George tried to share his food. By the time they'd finished their rations, Sam was starting to wonder if the other two were going to freeze each other out all the way to the river.

"I was looking for a fight that wasn't there," Tony said abruptly. "Conceded."

Steve gave a nod.

"Also. The last thing you said… might not have been entirely unfounded. But you're wrong about why."

"I never said why," said Steve.

"Well, you're still wrong about it. But more to the point: in the interest of surviving the next week, I'm willing to call a time-out on…" His hand waved vaguely. "On all of the history. Until we get back. I will if you will."

Steve did not look impressed. "Great," he said. "You get the last word, and then we stop discussing it."

Tony groaned. "Fine, _you_ can have the last word, and then we stop discussing it."

"I don't want the last word, I just—"

"Then why the hell did you—"

Sam, who was reevaluating every choice in his life that had led him to that moment, interjected, "I swear, I will kill you both with my hands."

They both shot him guilty looks, and he got two more muttered apologies.

After another awkward silence, Tony eventually said, "So, time-out?"

"Time-out," Steve agreed.

(Whether they could actually stick to it remained to be seen, but Sam decided it was too early in the morning for cynicism.)

"Now that that's settled, we should hit the road," he said. "If we're lucky, we'll reach the turnoff for the southwest path by lunch. And just to review — who jumps on the back of the giant spider?"

Steve shot him a look. "Sam, that's not—"

" _Who_ jumps on the back of the giant spider?"

"Nobody jumps on the back of the giant spider."

"Damn right."

 


	39. Chapter 39

Sam was a little surprised. Or a lot surprised. Stunned, really. But Steve and Tony did knock off the sniping and buckle down.

The horses continued to make good time, and they reached the southwest turnoff by midday, as expected. The path was not designed for supply wagons, but it was broad enough for the horses to walk single-file.

As the team rode, they did what they should have been doing all along: they talked through tactics for handling the many threats out there. Spider-crab territory was further to the west; they might see a couple of stragglers, but hopefully not action en masse. But that was the only bit of good luck they could expect. Chimpanzees and jellyfish could pop up anywhere, as they'd already seen. The Komodo dragons liked rocky slopes, which wasn't much of a restriction in the foothills of a mountain. And they had no superpowers or high-tech gear to rely on — only their simple weapons, and each other.

It wasn't long before theory was put into practice. They'd barely settled down for their mid-afternoon break when another chimpanzee tried to crash the party.

Sam and Steve took up flanking positions while Tony tossed down the net of rope and sticks that he'd been working on all day. The three of them retreated as the monster scuttled forward, and as it crossed the net, somehow its legs and claws got tangled. It tried to back off, but that only snared it worse. The more it thrashed, the more the net curled up around it. It closed one massive claw on a section of the rope and snipped it like sewing thread, but by then the team was on it. Steve and Tony pinned the claws with their swords and Sam thrust his spearpoint through a cluster of eyes.

They all had to poke the thing a bunch of times to convince themselves that it was dead. Then Tony crouched over the body and began picking at the net.

"Not bad," he said. "Basic design held up okay. Minor damage, but no significant loss of structural integrity. Though now there's spider gunk on it."

"Nice work," Steve said.

Tony shrugged. "It's what I do. Ropes and sticks aren't my usual oeuvre, but here we are."

"All right," Sam said. "Looks like we've got this one. Now let's review dragon trios again."

 

* * *

 

The trip got easier once they agreed to stop fighting each other, but that didn't mean it was _easy_.

There were more giant spiders. There were jellyfish in the dead of night that they had no choice but to run from. There were lots of smaller animals — all kinds of weird combinations of legs and fur and scales — that didn't attack outright but showed their hostility in other ways. The team was met with hissing, spitting, and rattling, and sometimes the horses even got their ankles snapped at.

But those problems, at least, were under control. Steve agreed with Sam's assessment that the biggest threat by far came from the Komodo dragons. The half-sized green ones were quick on their feet and could easily dart in and come away with a mouthful of muscle. The mottled grey ones could spit their venom at least a couple yards, and they aimed for the eyes. Finally, the armor plating on the giant ones could absorb any damage the team could throw at them, and their spiked tails could break a man's leg or tear his guts open.

They prepared as best they could. When the confrontation finally happened on the third morning, they did a lot better than they had with the first spider, when they'd all been in each other's way. They executed their plan, and when it was over, they had three live horses, three live humans, and three dead dragons. They also had between them multiple bites, multiple acid burns, and a broken arm.

Sam had brought a salve that neutralized the acid, and he and Tony hastily smeared some over the spatter they'd taken. More first aid would have to wait until they'd put some distance between themselves and the dragon corpses.

The horses had scattered as far as their respective hitching lines allowed, and the team split up to coax them back. In the distance, Steve could hear Tony arguing with George. His own horse was more cooperative, but it gave him a deeply reproachful look and bent to nudge his shoulder with its nose.

"Yeah, it hurts," Steve admitted. He was holding his arm tight to his chest, where it throbbed like mad. "I could use a smooth ride this afternoon, all right?"

After about half an hour, they stopped to deal with the rest of their injuries. Steve wound up at the top of the triage list — which struck him as backwards, since he was the only one of them _not_ actively bleeding, but Sam didn't look like he was in the mood for an argument. After an examination that Steve endured with clenched teeth and averted eyes, Sam sent Tony out into the forest to find some small branches, and between them they rigged up a splint and a sling.

"Remember when I said that I can't make broken bones go away?" Sam asked him. "This is broken, and I can't make it go away."

"I know," Steve replied. "I knew as soon as its tail clipped me. At least it isn't my sword arm." He paused. "Every time I think my life can't get any stranger…"

Sam chuckled at that as he put the finishing touches on the sling. Then he turned to Tony. "Okay, let's see it."

"That was a bit brusque," Tony said as he hitched up his trouser leg and shifted to lie down on his stomach. "Kel has a much better bedside manner, if you were wondering."

"I wasn't." Sam started to clean the deep bite wound that the green dragon had left in Tony's calf. "Is your back bleeding, too?"

"Probably. I felt the delightful pop of a pulled stitch."

"I'll take a look at it after. And I want to clean out those burns more thoroughly." He unpacked his suture kit, and bent to his task.

"Given the rate that we're picking up injuries," Steve said, "it might make more sense to go back to the labor camp once the mission is done, rather than the garrison."

Sam glanced his way. "You mean a one-day ride to proper medical facilities, instead of three or four? Yeah, I agree."

"Jean won't like the extra delay," Tony warned.

"Jean stopped liking this when we didn't get back last night," Steve said. "She'll understand when she finds out why."

Sam finished cleaning and bandaging Tony's injuries. Steve, one-handed, wasn't of much use, so it was up to Tony to return the favor. Sam had also been bitten, and he'd taken a spray of acid across his chest and shoulder. Tony, uncharacteristically silent, followed his instructions until each wound had been dressed.

There was still daylight left. The team saddled up again and put in a few more hours of riding. As the sun began to set, their efforts were rewarded: the southwest path joined up with the broad dirt road that led between the research outpost and the labor camp.

(Of course Steve was thinking about the last time he'd been brought down this road, and then brought back. Of the inbound trip, he remembered tiny snatches: disorientation from the drugs, the jolting of the wagon, darkness and panic at being confined. His memories of the laboratory were of no use to anyone, and he kept them carefully buried. He had nothing at all from the rescue or the return trip. The only one of them with useful intel about the outpost and the surrounding terrain was Sam.)

"We're close," Sam said. "We should get off the road. Turn east, leave a wide margin around the outpost until we get to the river, then find someplace near the waterfall where we can set up and wait for our Gecko buddies."

"Do we have any idea where our Gecko buddies might try to make the climb?" Tony asked.

"Hard to say," Sam replied. "South of the river, the cliff turns back into more of a hill. That's where I would go if I had to do it. But if they're better rock climbers than we are, they've got no reason to waste time crossing the river. In any case, I say we wait on this side. We'll either see them when they cross or see them when they climb."

"Sounds good," Steve said. "But before we settle in, I want to take a look at the outpost."

Sam and Tony both stopped and looked at him askance.

"Any particular reason?" Tony asked.

"I haven't seen it from the outside before."

"Neither have I, but you don't see me going out of my way."

"Isn't this exactly what Jean told you _not_ to do?" Sam asked.

"I'm talking about basic reconnaissance, not a full-scale attack," Steve said. "We came all this way. Why waste the effort?"

(The truth was, the proposal had been a surprise to him even as it had come out of his mouth. And it didn't actually make any sense. A few minutes with binoculars in the dark weren't going to tell them anything about the outpost that Sam didn't already know. Maybe… maybe he needed to prove to himself that he could set eyes on that place and not come apart. That they'd already taken everything they could take.)

Sam and Tony shared an openly skeptical look. Then Sam shrugged and said, "Let's get a little closer. Then we can discuss it."

So they got a little closer. Off the path, the horses lost their speed advantage, so the team proceeded on foot. The light dimmed rapidly as the sun set. They had only a short window before it became too dangerous to travel.

When it came time to make a decision, they didn't actually discuss it. Instead, Sam announced, "We should be just past the eastern edge of the outpost by now. You two stay here. I'll go and see what the scorpions are up to."

Steve scowled. "That's not quite what I had in mind."

"I know, but it's what's happening," Sam said flatly. "You're not at your most stealthy right now, and I'm the only one who knows the territory. Stay put, and stay alert. I'll be back in ten minutes."

Then he was gone before Steve could argue further.

Tony and George sat down simultaneously, and fixed Steve with identical, obstinate looks.

Fine. Steve tethered his and Sam's horses, since apparently no one else was going to do it, then joined Tony on the ground.

Tony unpacked the chimpanzee net from George's saddle bags and spread it out across his knees. "So this is obviously not about reconnaissance," he said as he began to pick at the design like he did at every break. "Do you…" He gestured vaguely. "You know?"

"What?"

"Want to _talk_ about it."

"Aren't we taking a time-out?" Steve asked.

"If we weren't taking a time-out, I would remember that I'm still furious with you and I don't really give a shit about what's on your mind," Tony retorted. "But since I'm temporarily not remembering all that, I'm asking: do you want to talk about it?"

"Your sales pitch could use some work," Steve told him.

"Whatever."

They lapsed into silence as the last of the daylight faded. Steve heard crunching from behind him as his horse snacked on some leaves, and faint rustling noises as Tony's fingers worked their way around the perimeter of the net. There were no rattles or other warning sounds from around them. The forest, for the moment, was still.

He leaned back against a tree and tried in vain to find a comfortable position. The ache in his arm had been growing worse all afternoon. He wouldn't be getting much sleep that night.

(If he'd had his strength, he could have dodged the dragon easily. Or even if he hadn't, its tail could never have broken his arm. Or even if it had, the bone would have healed within the hour. But that was then and this was now.)

Tony's offer itched at him. Steve _really_ didn't want to argue. But he and Tony had been doing better recently at having discussions that weren't arguments, thanks to the artificial environment of the time-out. They could act like colleagues, even if on some level it was just pretending. Maybe the pretense was good enough.

The darkness brought a sense of privacy with it, and Steve found a few of the words spilling out.

"I don't remember most of it," he said. He heard Tony's hands go still. "Some pieces from the wagon, and some from… from when I was there. But not very much."

"Probably for the best," Tony offered.

"Now that I'm back here… I don't know. If I get this close and then run away, doesn't that mean they won?"

"They didn't win," Tony said. "You're still here."

"Most of the time, it doesn't feel that way."

Tony didn't respond right away. Steve eventually heard him take a breath, but whatever he'd decided to say was put on hold when Sam came crashing through the underbrush.

"We've got a serious problem," Sam announced. "They beat us."

Steve and Tony scrambled to their feet and followed him back into the forest.

They slowed their pace before they got too close, and crept through the trees single-file. With one arm out of commission, Steve felt even clumsier than usual. He followed Sam up a small rise in the terrain, keeping low. Sam lay flat on his stomach when he reached the top, and Steve and Tony followed suit.

A short ways beyond the rise was a gap in the trees, and past that was the boundary of the Nyth outpost. There were figures gathered at the center of the complex — a lot of them.

Sam handed his binoculars to Steve, and he took a long, hard look. Then he passed them on to Tony.

Tony made no move to take them. He muttered a collection of syllables that Steve couldn't resolve into words.

"Sorry?"

In an irritated whisper, Tony enunciated, "I don't like to be handed things."

Steve had no idea what to make of that. Scrambling for context, he asked, "Is this a… a time-out thing?"

"No, it's just a _thing_."

He hadn't thought that Natasha's very drowsy definition of teamwork would have had any practical applications, but oddly enough, it seemed to fit: _it's about supporting each other's things_.

"Okay," he whispered, and tried to sound like he meant it. "How does it—"

"Just put them down."

Steve did. Tony picked up the binoculars and took his turn. He saw what the rest of them did: that the three Geckos, who were supposed to be at least a day behind them, had already reached the outpost. They were standing at the center of an agitated cluster of Nyth, who were passing around a broken spear stained with blood.

And just like that, this was an entirely different problem.

The trip back to the horses was quick and silent. Then the debate began.

"How?" Tony demanded. "No, seriously, _how_? Didn't you ask Kel—"

"Of course I did," Steve said. "She said 'not so different from humans'."

"Looks like 'not so different' has some flex to it," said Sam. "And how they did it doesn't matter anymore. The question is, how are the scorpions going to respond?"

"The giant leopards," Steve said. "What's the—"

"Kethyshi."

"The kethyshi can be targeted to our scent, right? That's what they can use the blood for?"

"That's right," Sam said. "And I'll just throw it out there that we have no idea what other kinds of weapons they've got."

"If we leave right now," Tony began, "and push the horses for all they're worth—"

"Absolutely not," Steve said. "We have to stay and fight."

"Fight with _what_?" Tony snapped. "What exactly do you think we can do? There are three of us with swords and spears! When it was just three lizard guys, that made what passes for sense around here. But now it's three lizard guys, twenty scorpions, and impending giant leopards, and there is _nothing we can do_."

"How fast do you think one of those leopards can run once it gets going?" Steve asked him. "Would it even take a day to get from here back to the garrison?"

"No," Tony admitted. "Half a day, more likely."

"But they still have to get a leopard here first," Sam said. "The way I see it, our only play is to make a run for it back to the labor camp. If we push the horses, we can get there some time tomorrow. Then we set off a 'run like hell' flare and trust that Jean can fill in the details."

Steve nodded slowly. "You're right," he said. "That's exactly what you need to do. Get back to the camp as fast as you can. I'll stay here and slow them down."

This, however, was met with pushback.

"Are you _fucking_ kidding me?"

"Steve, what can you possibly—"

"No, seriously, is this your idea of joke? Because—"

"—if you honestly think we'll just let you stay here and—"

"—so desperate to cast yourself into the maw of the first sacrifice play that—"

" _All right_!" Steve snapped, and they both cut it out. "Everyone else needs to be warned, and the camp is our best choice for making that happen. You're right. But the garrison team is mostly injured. Even if they know something's coming, how much of a defense do you think they can put together? If there's even the slightest chance of stopping the Nyth here, then someone has to try."

"But there's _no_ chance," Tony said. "Not with one, not with three. Steve, come on. Be realistic."

Sam, though, had gone quiet. He knew — he had to know — just how catastrophic it would be if the Nyth were able to unleash their weapons.

He turned to Tony and asked, "We brought grenades, right?"

"Yeah. Three. This wasn't supposed to be a 'grenades' kind of party."

No, that wasn't enough to make a difference… but it did trigger a recent memory — something that frankly should have been a lot more urgent, except it had been overshadowed by the attack and its aftermath. Explosives were the key to evening the odds. Not grenades, though. They needed something bigger.

And maybe they had it.

"Sam," Steve said, "when Tony and I first got to the garrison, one of the grain fields had recently caught fire. Did you see what happened?"

"Hell yeah, I saw what happened," Sam said. "Nat and Jean got each other wound up about why Kel had warned everybody not to dig. So they decided to dig, because sometimes good sense up and takes a vacation. They started a hole between the field and the pathway. About a foot down, someone nicked a root, and _foom_. The whole thing went up in seconds — and by the way, I see where you're going with this."

Tony held up both hands. "Hold on here…"

"Tony, you've had over a week to study their computer," Steve said. "What do you think?"

"Do we even know if these guys have the same system?" Sam asked.

"No, we'll have to get into their control room and find out," said Steve. "Tony—"

" _Steve_ ," Tony snapped. "Just stop a second. We can't destroy the outpost. We _can't_. This is a non-starter. You have to come up with something else."

"Why?"

"Because…" He gave an exasperated sigh, and paced away. "It was actually something Alisha said months ago. I didn't have the context back then, but she was right. The thing and the counter-thing. It's how the scorpions think. Look at all their organic tech, their recycling, their incredibly green ore-processing facility, which ought to be a contradiction in terms—"

"What does this have to do with anything?"

"They don't like permanent changes," Tony said. "The things they do, they can undo. That includes what they did to you." He looked away again, nervously. "They left tools for repairing their computer. I've been getting the hang of it. Learning their tech. If I can get some time with their research facilities, I should be able to remove whatever it was they put inside you. But I can't do it with the local equivalent of a soldering iron and a voltmeter — I need specialized equipment that they only have _there_." His finger stabbed out in the direction of the outpost. "That's why you can't destroy it."

The words were like… like water bouncing off an umbrella. Steve could hear them, but nothing was sinking in. The first response he could find was, "So that line the other day about Wakanda—"

"Well, obviously I wasn't going to bring it up until I had something solid," Tony retorted. "I thought, once we got around to it, we would take the outpost intact and I'd have some time to learn their bioengineering tricks, and then I was going to try and ask you for some muscle tissue samples… you know, casually."

Sam asked him, "Did you have some wording in mind for that last part?"

"It was a preliminary plan."

Anger was beginning to push its way through the shock. Anger at having hope tossed at him like a lifeline only to be snatched away in the same breath. At being blindsided by this choice, when it was too late to even make a choice.

His jaw ached at the effort of holding the anger in. "A person not currently taking a time-out," he gritted, "might wonder if keeping this _incredibly relevant_ piece of information to yourself was your idea of revenge."

"And a second person not currently taking a time-out might angrily reply that something that _might_ happen doesn't compare with something that _did_ happen, and furthermore—"

"Let's drop it right there," Sam interjected. "This is going nowhere useful."

They both broke off, and stepped back. Steve squeezed his eyes shut and forced himself to take a breath.

"It was only in the last couple days before the attack that I started to think there might be a way," Tony said quietly. "I didn't want to get your hopes up until I had something more than wild extrapolation."

"Did you tell Jean?" Steve asked.

"No, of course not," he said. "I wouldn't have talked to someone else before I talked to you. Anyway, you can't torch the place. It's your last chance."

Steve shook his head. "That doesn't matter now. It doesn't." (That was a lie. It did matter. Oh, God, it mattered. But other things mattered more.) "We have to stop the Nyth here, whatever it takes. So — Tony, can you do it?"

They held each other's eyes for a long moment. Even in the dark, Steve could read a mix of defensiveness and regret in Tony's expression. He didn't dare guess what Tony could see in his.

Then Tony gave a quick nod, and said, "Assuming they have the same kind of tree — assuming they have a control tree at all — it's not a single plant. Under the bark is a braid of different plants and roots all spliced together. I would have to dig down into the root system and open it up. If they have a self-destruct, I'll recognize the line that controls it. To set it off, a couple good chops with an ax would do."

"Not for nothing," Sam said, "but I wasn't kidding about the field going up in seconds. Are we planning to walk away from this?"

"If an ax would do the job, I'm thinking a grenade would do it, too," Steve replied. "Tony, can you lengthen the fuse?"

"Yeah, of course."

"Okay. You'll need time in the control room—"

"I'll also need to _find_ the control room."

"—and an escort to get you in and out." Steve looked down at his broken arm. "Under the circumstances, I'm not sure if—"

"No, I got this one," Sam said immediately. "I'm the one who's done it before."

"There might still be survivors," Steve continued. "You two need to take one side of the river and I'll take the other."

"Since we'll be in the water—"

"Sorry, we're in the water?" Tony asked.

"Only quiet way past the barrier," said Sam. "If you're curious, it's freezing and it's filthy."

"Good, I'm so glad we picked up all these open wounds first."

"That's gonna have to be tomorrow's problem. You swim, right?"

"Well, I don't drown."

"Good for a start," Sam said. "If we're very lucky, Kel's rope is still there. But my point is that the two of us will have an easier time crossing, so we'll go south."

"Then that's the plan," said Steve. "Any questions?"

"Yeah, I got one," Sam said. "What happens if the self-destruct only takes out the research facilities, and leaves us with twenty pissed-off scorpions?"

"Well," Steve said, "I for one will be incredibly disappointed."

 

* * *

 

With the clock ticking, they prepared for infiltration. Their plan left the horses undefended, but there was nothing to be done about that. Sam and Steve led them what they hoped was a safe distance from the outpost, and tethered them almost within reach of the cliff's edge. A family of six-legged extendible bears was sprawled on the ground nearby, asleep. Sam hoped that was a good sign.

George had not appreciated being asked to relocate. Sam finished securing his hitching line, and got a wing to the face for his trouble. Behind him, Steve chuckled.

"Yeah, very funny," Sam groused. He gave the knot one last tug, then left George to his sulk. "I'd like to have a word or two with whoever had the bright idea to stick wings on these guys."

"The way I hear it, the wings came with the shiny scales," Steve said.

"And that's _another_ thing that makes no damn sense." They started the walk back to their staging area, where Tony was waiting. "Steve—"

"I'm okay," Steve said quickly.

"Really?"

"No." He gave a dry, humorless laugh. "I knew this wasn't going to get fixed until we get back to Earth. Nothing's changed. Those ten seconds or so where it might have gone a different way… I think it's simpler to just forget about them."

"Denial sounds simple," Sam warned, "but it usually doesn't turn out that way."

Steve tilted his head. "Maybe not. But it'll have to be good enough until we get this done. And I'm sorry for dumping the hardest part of the op on you."

"Don't worry about that," said Sam. "Tony and I can handle it."

"I know you can."

When they'd left, Tony had been bent over a disassembled grenade, fiddling with its innards by the light of a lantern. He was just finishing up the job when they returned. Sam took his pack and settled down beside him.

"I lengthened the fuse," Tony said, and snapped the last section of the casing back into place. "Ten-second delay. Enough to give us a running start, but hopefully not so long that the scorpions can find and disarm it."

"Sounds good."

This was a stealth op, which meant face paint. Sam pulled out his kit and set it down between them. "Need any help with this?"

"No, I can do my own makeup, thank you."

The two of them got painted up. Across the way, Steve was doing the same.

Tony was quietly tense, which was better than ninety percent of civilians would probably be in his position. Still, Sam needed to shore him up a little.

"How're you doing?" he asked.

"Swell," Tony said. "Fresh air, exercise. Horsemanship. Now an evening swim. Who could complain?"

Sam didn't roll his eyes, but only because a glib nonanswer was exactly what he'd expected. "Since I got here, I don't think five consecutive minutes have gone by when I didn't wish I had my wings." He hefted his spear in one hand. "I mean, come _on_. I've seen some stuff these last few years, and you've been at it longer, but _this_ is a whole other level of ridiculous."

"You're not wrong."

"When we're in there, stay focused on your job," Sam said. "No matter what else happens. I've got your back. That's my job."

Tony glanced his way. "Just like that, huh."

"You haven't done a lot of this on-the-ground stuff before, have you?"

"This from the guy who goes by 'Falcon'?"

"You know what I mean."

"Yeah," Tony said tightly. "Not a soldier. People keep mentioning that to me, just in case it slips my mind."

This time Sam did roll his eyes. "Normally I'd be up for a few rounds of defense mechanisms before we got down to it, but we're a little short on time tonight. So no bullshit, Tony. You and I don't have much history, and a lot of what we have was spent on different sides. I'm sure you'd be happier if it were Kel or Jean here instead of me. I understand all that. The thing I need you to understand is that none of it matters right now. I've got your back."

Tony glanced at him again, then quickly looked down. His hands worked nervously at his jacket cuffs.

After a long pause, he said quietly, "I'm not the world's biggest fan of water. I can swim, it's fine, it's just… not my preferred environment."

"I'll keep an eye out," Sam said.

"And I'll get the job done."

"Good."

Sam reached out his fist. Tony, apparently by reflex, responded almost in kind except he led with the back of his hand. They clashed awkwardly, and both chuckled.

"Sorry. It's Kel's thing."

"Yeah." Sam adjusted to match — fist lightly closed, elbow bent, throwing an easy backhand that tapped wrist against wrist.

Then it was time.

They stopped at the hill again for some basic recon. The outpost was bisected by the river. Rows of greenhouses stood on both banks, and wooden footbridges crossed the water at regular intervals. The buildings further to the south looked like simple sheds. That was probably the agricultural sector. Their focus, then, was on the north.

The control center at the garrison had a very distinctive design: four buildings on the corners of a square, and a fifth at the center. There was no such configuration at the outpost. However, there was one building — the tallest — sitting in the northwest corner, all by itself. It was as good a guess as any.

They made rendezvous plans as best they could, even though there were so many unknowns it was a pointless exercise. Once the outpost went up in flames, the two teams, north and south, had to make sure there were no survivors. There was no telling how long it would take, and with the river between them, they couldn't back each other up. All they could do was agree to meet by the waterfall, if they were able.

They split up. Steve took cover next to the road that led north, while Sam guided Tony around the outpost to the spot on the bank where he had slipped into the river once before.

He knelt and reached into the water and… yes. The rope that Kel had somehow affixed to the side of the river channel was still there. It was thinner and slicker than he remembered, but he gave it a couple hard tugs and it didn't come loose.

Sam beckoned to Tony, and guided his hand down into the water. Tony flinched at the sudden cold. His fist closed around the rope, and he gave Sam a look that clearly read, _Are you fucking serious?_

Unfortunately, Sam was. They rehydrated two filter masks, and Sam harvested two of the thick, hollow reeds he'd used last time to complete the construction of primitive snorkel gear.

He leaned in next to Tony's ear and whispered, "It's colder than you can imagine and the current is brutal. Use your legs to grip the rope and keep your body underwater. Don't put your mouth right on the reed. No matter how level you keep your head, there's going to be chop on the surface that'll get in the tube. Stay calm, breathe shallow and even. I'll go first and you follow. It'll feel like we're in there forever, but really it'll be more like five minutes. When I tap your foot twice, stop moving but don't surface yet. I'll take a look first and make sure it's clear. When I give you two taps again, roll up onto shore and stay low. Any questions?"

Tony gave a quick shake of his head.

"Ready?"

He shrugged in a 'what the hell' sort of way.

Sam sealed his mask around his nose and mouth, and Tony followed suit. Then he lay down on the bank, reached for the rope again, and rolled into the water.

Bitter, bitter cold slammed into him, and he rode out the pain as muscles cramped and shuddered. Above him, turbulence in the water indicated that Tony had followed. Sam reached up and found Tony's boots locked around the rope. He gave a quick tug on Tony's trouser cuff, then began his climb down.

The rope was hard to grip through his gloves, but without the gloves it would have shredded his hands. Strapped to his back, his spear jerked and twisted in the current. One arm's length at a time, carefully navigating the points where the rope dug into the rock, he descended, and Tony followed.

Kel had had her empathic sense to orient herself. All Sam could do was estimate the distance that he needed to travel, and count handholds, one by one in the cold and the dark. The current was a dull roar in his ears, and the frigid water seemed to seep into his bones. One handhold at a time, until he'd counted to one hundred. That should get them past the barrier. Then another fifty to put them behind the greenhouses. Sam reached above his head, found Tony's boot again, and gave it two firm taps.

Now the tricky part. He shifted onto his back, and very slowly allowed his face to surface. The air felt warm, just for a moment, by comparison. He let the water run off his face, and opened his eyes.

They were deeper into the camp than he'd planned. Sam was staring up at the underside of the first of the wooden footbridges. He had cover, admittedly, but not much in the way of lines of sight. Behind him, the top of Tony's breathing tube bobbed just above the surface of the water. On either side of the river were the wooden baseboards and transparent films of the greenhouses. Sam lifted his head up further until his ears were out of the water. He couldn't hear any clicking, rattling, or other indicators that the scorpions were nearby. Hopefully they were all busy debating what to do about the human uprising, and not paying attention to their borders.

Sam ducked back under and tapped Tony's boot, then surfaced again and watched him as he heaved himself out of the water, keeping low as instructed. Tony scraped the mask off his face with a shudder, then reached out and gave Sam a hand up after him.

They crouched behind the baseboard of the nearest greenhouse, shivering in the cold. There were no scorpions in sight. So far, so good.

Sam took the lead. They made their way back upstream, darting across the gaps between greenhouses until they reached the last one in line. Sam signaled for Tony to hold position, and crept around the corner.

He inched forward until he could see the northern half of the outpost. Straight ahead of him was their candidate for the control room. To his right, several identical square buildings were arranged in rows — maybe residences, or research facilities, or both. There were lights on in several of the buildings, including the one they wanted.

The doorway to the control room had no door. Sam froze in place when a shadow passed in front of the threshold. Then another one. Two scorpions inside, maybe more. They had to wait.

Sam backed off a little but maintained his watch. Kel's training sessions had included the most efficient way to kill a Nyth: a hard thrust straight down, striking just behind the dome that was their bizarrely featureless head. But anyone who tried it would have to watch out for the Nyth's naturally venomous tails, and their massive foreclaws that were strong enough to take a man's leg off. Working together, Sam and Tony could probably deal with one Nyth at a time, but Sam didn't want to push the odds any further than that.

Then again, if the control room didn't empty out, they might not have a choice in the matter.

_Another five minutes_ , he told himself. _Another five, and if they still won't leave_ —

But then the light in the control room began to fade. Soon two scorpions departed, single-file, and headed for the center of the compound. Another group emerged from the main cluster of buildings to meet them, and they all stopped in the middle of the lawn to have a conversation.

_Come on, guys, take it indoors. We don't have all night._

Tail prongs twitched and bristles rattled. Sometimes the secondary pincers, the ones that lay across their backs, twitched or clicked, and every now and then a main pincer added its punctuation. If Sam had been a linguist instead of a freezing cold Avenger on a deadline, he would have found it intriguing.

As it was, the rhythmic chit-chat just pissed him off.

Tony, who was still behind the greenhouse and couldn't see any of this, tugged on his sleeve. Sam turned back, and Tony signed, impatiently, _What_?

He shook his head. _Hold position_.

More rattling and clicking. Sam wondered what kind of role the scorpions stationed here were expected to play in the greater scheme of things. If they were scientists and not soldiers, maybe the news they'd gotten that night had left them confused or frightened. Or maybe they were more like Kel's people, and everyone was a soldier. No way to know.

The walls of the greenhouse beside him were made from a blue-tinted film. Plants, some supported by stakes and some free-standing, stood in neat rows within. In the half-second glance Sam had given them, the free-standing ones had reminded him vaguely of sunflowers. Motion caught his eye and he looked up again. The closest sunflower was turning its heavy-hanging crown in his direction, and Sam's stomach clenched because at the top of the stalk was not a flower but an eyeball.

Hell no. _Hell_ no. He jerked backward and just in time, because a thick tangle of vines was creeping up the inside of the film. More of the vines began to poke their way through the wooden base of the structure, spilling out around the sides and along the ground. Sam caught up with Tony, who was also backing off, but the only places they could go were back into the river or out from cover. Either they scrubbed the mission, or they made a run for the control room in full view of the entire scorpion assembly.

But by some miracle, the scorpions chose that moment to head back inside. They split up and scuttled toward different buildings in the main complex, leaving the way clear. Sam and Tony bolted across the lawn and ducked into the building that they hoped was the control room.

It had a control tree and it also had a scorpion. They burst in on it just as it was swinging around to meet them, and Sam didn't even try to cut his momentum — he charged it full speed, hopped over its clumsy pincer swipe, pivoted and slammed his spear down point-first into its back. The tail snapped forward and missed him by a hair, but it was nothing more than reflex. The Nyth spasmed and went still.

Tony cocked his head at the dead scorpion, and said something in sign that Sam wasn't fluent enough to catch, but that had to do with jumping onto — or in this case over — the back of a giant monster.

Sam gestured to the corpse. _It worked, didn't it_?

Down to business. Tony knelt beside the tree while Sam freed his spear and dragged the hairy, nasty bug corpse out of the doorway. This tree was fancier than the one back at the garrison: it was obviously spliced together from many different species, with branches of different colors and textures, and a variety of leaves and flowers. But that was Tony's problem.

Sam took cover by the doorway and kept watch. Behind him, Tony started digging around the root of the tree. So far, it was quiet. There were still lights on in the main complex, but no more scorpions decided to go for a stroll.

He waited as long as he could possibly be expected to wait for someone to dig up the roots of a tree and figure out which one of them was a self-destruct switch. Then he checked over his shoulder.

Tony was flat on his stomach, flashlight between his teeth, poking around beneath the tree. Sam snapped his fingers to get his attention, then tapped his wrist where his watch would have been.

Tony held up two fingers, which Sam decided to interpret as 'two minutes' rather than Tony flipping him off. He went back to keeping watch.

And discovered that they weren't going to get two minutes. Maybe the control tree could send out a distress signal, maybe the Nyth he'd killed was overdue, maybe the eye-stalk in the greenhouse had done something… but whatever the case, the scorpions — _all_ the scorpions, and the three Geckos besides — came boiling out of their buildings and onto the lawn.

"Time's up," Sam announced, and ducked back out of the doorway. "Pull the pin and run."

"I just need—"

"No — _now_ , or we're dead."

" _Fine_." Tony yanked on something, and there was a faint click. He scrambled to his feet and turned to Sam. "Clock is running, now— oh shit."

They'd been seen. (Nine seconds.) The scorpions were barely twenty yards away and picking up speed. The Geckos were well ahead of them.

" _Run_!" Sam snapped, and aimed for the river. Tony drew his sword and followed a few paces behind. The enemy changed course to intercept. (Eight seconds. Seven.)

Almost there. They were going to make the water first. But then Sam hit the brakes with all his strength when he realized that the ground in front of him was thick with vines from the eye-stalk. Tony, behind him, couldn't react in time and knocked into him. (Six seconds.) He fell forward and the vines _surged_ upward to catch him, spines stabbing through his clothes and every touch was like fire—

Tony dropped to his knees and slashed at the vines with his belt knife, hacking wildly with one hand while hauling back on Sam's jacket with the other (five), and Sam pushed and Tony pulled and they both tumbled backward (four), and lucky Sam still had ahold of his spear because the next thing he knew there was a Gecko about to take his head off (three), but he blocked the strike and Tony found his sword and thrust the point into its belly (two), and then the two of them somehow scrambled the last few steps and took a wild dive into the river.

One.

Then the world caught fire.

 


	40. Chapter 40

Searing hot air gave way to icy cold water. Sam clenched one fist around his spear and locked the other arm around Tony, and together they were swept away.

The river was chaos and pounding water and tumbling debris, and they had to cross it. Keep their bearings, swim perpendicular to the current, blind and freezing and lungs bursting. They had to reach the southern bank before they went over the falls.

Other things fell into the water with them. No way to know if they were dead or alive. Every glancing impact had Sam bracing for the slice of a pincer or the stab of a tail. But no survivors latched on or tried to take their revenge, and he almost dared to hope that they'd gotten away clean when his hip struck a rock with blinding pain, and a moment later a huge piece of debris cut through the water between them and tore Tony from his grasp.

No panic. Never panic in the water. They stamped that out of you in PJ school. Sam kicked hard and broke the surface, and sucked in air as he scanned downstream.

They'd nearly made it. The shore was barely six feet away. Just ahead and coming up fast were the roots of a fallen tree. They jutted into the water in a thick tangle, and amongst them was a body. It was Tony: trapped, half-submerged, not moving.

Sam put every muscle, every scrap of strength he had left into reaching land. The current swept him past the tree before he could grab onto the rocky bank and heave himself up. He tossed the spear and pulled a knife, and went back in.

(In spite of the freezing water, each pinprick from those vines he'd fallen into was an individual point of fire. That was probably a bad sign.)

Tony was unconscious, but his face was out of the water and he was breathing. Whatever the current had slammed them into must have clipped him in the head. Sam got behind him, gripped him tight, and hacked at the tree roots until he could pull them both free.

Unresponsive bodies were heavy. Sopping wet ones even more so. Sam felt about as graceful as a pregnant walrus, but inch by inch, he managed to drag them both out of the water. He laid Tony on his side, and confirmed pulse and respiration. Tony's face was bloody and his cheekbone was already swelling. Additional injuries to be determined. Somehow, through the whole thing, he'd managed to keep ahold of his sword.

Sam's hip was killing him, but in a way that meant nasty bruises, not joint damage. The real problems were the burning in his arms and the fever-chill that was creeping down his spine. But they would have to wait. He scrambled back over the fallen tree and went to collect his spear.

A heavy scraping noise froze him in place. Sam took a breath, and slowly raised his head. Scrambling up onto shore a few yards downstream was a Nyth.

The river hadn't been kind to it. Its tail was askew, and a couple of its many legs were curled up beneath it. Its pincers clicked and clacked as it shuffled around to face him.

Sam closed both hands on his spear and slowly straightened up.

"If you're wondering where it all went wrong for you," he said to the scorpion, "I'll tell you — it was the part where you started building labor camps."

The scorpion rattled something in response. Sam didn't know what it meant, and he didn't care.

 

* * *

 

Steve hadn't seen the first fire. The second one more than made up for it. A blast of yellow-green light turned night into day, and an instant later a deafening roar and a rush of super-heated air sent him ducking for cover with his arms thrown up over his face. Sight-sound-touch all overloaded, and for ten panicked heartbeats there was nothing Steve could do but cower in the dirt.

Then it was over.

Steve slowly straightened up, using the closest tree for support. His night vision had been wiped out; he couldn't see two feet in front of him. The air was still hot, and tasted of ash.

The knots in his guts threatened to climb right up his throat and spill onto the ground. There was _goddamned right you can burn you sons of bitches_ and there was _they could have fixed it dear God what have I done_. The war between them was going to tear him in half.

Steve wiped his face off and told himself, his guts, and anyone else who needed telling that nothing had changed. A momentary fantasy was just that — a fantasy. He couldn't be fixed here. _That_  was reality. Had been for months. Nothing had changed.

He told himself that.

If he turned south, the outpost would be straight ahead of him. It was it was too far away, though, to be seen in the darkness. Without a line of sight on the river, he just had to trust that Sam and Tony had made it out.

Hoofbeats sounded from behind him. Steve drew his sword and took cover.

He knew what the horses sounded like, and this was different. The sound came from multiple two-legged gaits, overlapping. He waited and watched, and soon a squadron of four Mjentur came pounding their way down the road. They must have been on a patrol or some other errand for the Nyth. Their bull's faces weren't very expressive, or at least not in a way that was recognizable to humans. But Steve was pretty sure they weren't happy.

They ran right past Steve's position. Sword in hand, he stepped out behind them.

"If it makes a difference," he said, "you're not the only ones having a bad day."

 

* * *

 

Consciousness slinked back like a kicked dog. Tony wished it hadn't bothered. _Everything_ hurt. Things hurt that he was pretty sure didn't even belong to him.

He remembered a split-second of blazing heat, the icy plunge of cold when they'd hit the water, then a seemingly infinite stretch of being tossed around like a spare sock in a washing machine. He'd tried to swim until a stunning full-body impact had robbed him of all motor control. After that came a hazy blur of burning lungs and no air and something trapping his arms, then blackness. Sam must have dragged him out.

Sam. Tony opened his eyes and went to wipe the water off his face, and promptly regretted everything he'd ever done in his entire life. _Fierce_ cutting agony lanced from his shoulder down through his arm, ricocheted off a wrist bone, and lodged back in his skull. This was 'multiple internal _something_ ' pain. The kind where moving around could fuck things up a whole lot worse.

No. Didn't matter. Sam. Tony managed to pry one eye open again, and when this didn't kill him, he got to work on sitting up without moving the left half of his body. Once the red haze cleared from his vision and the world quit spinning, he cautiously turned his head and found Sam holding his spear and leaning against a tree a little ways upstream. He looked exhausted and soaked through, but he was on his feet and in possession of more working limbs than Tony could claim.

Sam caught him looking, and gave a nod towards the scene of their crime. "Worked pretty good, huh."

"Yeah," Tony said. "Conflagrant."

(On top of the physical pain, another problem was making itself known. The water on his face wasn't anything like the thing in Afghanistan, and the pain in his shoulder wasn't anything like being strung up by the arms for five days, and the massive wall of fire still imprinted on his retinas wasn't anything like the one Pepper had fallen into… but apparently they were all close enough that every physiological warning sign that he and Kel had identified over the last few months was howling that a serious freakout was on the way and he didn't, he couldn't, not _now_ —)

A hand landed on his shoulder and he nearly screamed.

"You know what's next," Sam said. "Strip."

Luckily some reflexes took no brain power at all. "Gee, Wilson, most guys let me buy 'em a drink first before—"

"Hypothermia, Stark. You packed the spare fatigues, right?"

"Yeah, yeah." He was still waiting to see if this 'sitting up' fad had any staying power. The probability of being able to lift his arm high enough to get out of his jacket was essentially zero, never mind the rest of it.

When no particular progress was made, Sam sank down next to him and asked, "How bad are you hurt?"

"I lost a fingernail on the rocks," Tony said, which happened to be true. "I _hate_ that."

"Right. Is that fingernail standing in for some ribs?"

_Fuck it_. "Collarbone, I think," Tony admitted. "Somewhere between broken and shattered. Maybe some damage in the arm, too — I can't tell."

Sam shifted a little closer ( _too close_ ) and started pawing at his face. "You also took a bad blow to the head."

"That a fact."

"How's your vision?"

"Better when I'm not being poked in the eye." He jerked his head away and regretted it bitterly. "Can you ease up?"

"Look, I know it hurts like hell, but in this weather, being cold and wet will kill you. You've got to get into dry clothes."

And now he was picking at Tony's _clothes_ and Tony needed one hundred percent fewer hands on him. " _Back off_!" he snapped, and managed to jolt himself back a couple inches.

Sam pulled up short. "Tony?"

"I need," he said through clenched teeth, "some space."

Space, remarkably, happened.

Tony closed his eyes. If Kel had been there, she would have had some nice, calming, soothing, sensible things to say about the whole business. He tried to recreate some of them in the few corners of his brain not currently gibbering.

Some indeterminate amount of time later, he realized that a few hints of warmth were seeping into his own personal ice cube. He chanced opening his eyes.

A campfire had appeared. To his left, Sam was sitting a comfortable distance away, warming his hands. He'd changed clothes. By the light of the fire, Tony could see that both of his shirtsleeves were liberally stained with blood.

So this was awkward. "Hey, Sam," Tony said. "What's up?"

Sam looked him up and down. "Luckily, not much. I'm hoping there was only the one survivor."

"Sorry, the one what?"

Sam pointed downstream. Still moving very cautiously, Tony turned to look. Just to his right was the trunk of a fallen tree. A few yards past that, flickers of light glinted off the corpse of a Nyth.

"Oh." Tony's face went hot, and it wasn't from the fire. He hadn't noticed the fight, or even thought to ask. "Nice job."

"Thanks," Sam said, without much enthusiasm. "I haven't seen Steve yet. It's hard not to take that as a bad sign."

"Do you need to run a patrol or something?"

He shook his head. "I'm not leaving you alone."

"The fire will probably scare off all the usual nasties, at least for a little while."

"Forget it, Stark. That's not how this works."

Oh, terrific — now he was dragging the whole mission down. Tony slowly unfolded himself a little, and gestured Sam's way with his good arm. "Speaking of things that aren't working, what's up with the blood?"

Sam grimaced, and took one forearm in the other hand. "Remember those vines I fell into? They had some kind of spines on them. Left some holes."

"We'd better get 'em bandaged, right?"

"You can't even use your arm."

"That's an engineering problem."

Time to be useful again. Tony levered himself to his feet (wave of nausea from the pain, ignored), and staggered over. Sam rolled up his sleeves. His forearms looked like he'd had a run-in with the world's most incompetent acupuncturist.

"You brought bandages, right?" Tony asked.

"Yeah, a few." Sam reached into an interior pocket and pulled out some packaged field dressings. After a moment's pause, he set them on the ground.

Between them, they had two working hands with which to bandage a given forearm. It was slow and awkward, but they got the job done.

Then Sam asked, "Didn't Kel hand you her sword?"

"What?"

"When the garrison was attacked. Before she went into the water, I thought I saw her hand you her sword."

Tony took a moment to work through the eyerolls and the reflexive sarcasm. Sam had been pretty understanding, all things considered, and didn't deserve to be snapped at. "Yeah," he said. "She can hand me things. It took a few months of work to get there."

Sam nodded. "You were having a rough time of it a few minutes ago. Do you want to talk about it?"

As evenly as he could manage, Tony said, "I absolutely do not."

"Fair enough. Then how about letting me help you change your shirt?"

Tony's indrawn breath turned into a sudden coughing fit and it hurt like five kinds of hell. He curled back up and tried to convince his lungs not to bust out through his ribcage.

"Yeah, this isn't a multiple-choice question anymore," Sam said when Tony could breathe again. "Come on, Tony, let's just get it over with."

Tony had packed his spare pants and a shirt as ordered. They'd stayed nice and dry in their waterproof pouch inside his jacket. Lucky bastards.

Okay. Okay. This had to happen, and there was no way he could manage the jacket and the shirt on his own. The process was humiliating and agonizing in equal measures, but he was fractionally more comfortable afterward. He absolutely insisted on dealing with the pants himself, and Sam only rolled his eyes a little as he obligingly turned away.

Once the changing of the clothes was concluded, Sam propped up Tony's jacket on a stick to dry next to his own, then settled back down beside him.

"What happens next?" Tony asked. "We're waiting on Steve now, right?"

"Yeah. He shouldn't have any trouble finding us." Sam nodded at the campfire. "At some point, we'll need to get back across the river, and I don't think either of us is up for another swim. The last time I was in the neighborhood, Kel took us across on a fallen log. But that was months ago, and under the circumstances—"

"Yeah, that's not happening. Another engineering problem. I'll figure it out."

They waited. No sign of Steve. No signs of life at all. Tony's head was settling down, and the pain was, if not abating, then at least leveling off.

This was officially the longest stretch of time that he'd ever spent alone with Sam. Tony didn't really know him that well. Inasmuch as he thought about Sam at all, he summed him up as that guy who sometimes tagged along behind Steve. (Not that Tony minded new members of the Avengers club. Not that anyone had asked him.) The phrase _imprinted on Rogers like a little baby duck_ was, he knew, neither fair nor factual, but he couldn't deny that it had popped into his mind early on and stayed there. Upgrading the wings and goggles — sure, that had been fun. Sam had a 'jump off the cliff first and ask questions later' sort of attitude toward flying, and that was something Tony could always get behind. Then the Accords business had kicked off, and… well. He hadn't wasted a lot of time wondering whose side Sam would take.

The two of them hadn't had any particular clashes in the last five months, but Tony hadn't accorded him a lot of mental bandwidth, either. And maybe that had been an error in judgment, because Sam, quite independent of Rogers, had been quietly getting on with doing a damned impressive job that night.

Tony cleared his throat and pretended that this remark wasn't horribly overdue. "I suppose, since I'm here to notice it, that you, uh… got me out of the water."

"Of course," Sam said. "I got your back."

"Well. My back, and the rest of me, with the possible exception of my clavicle, appreciate it."

"Once we get back to our supplies, I can strap up that arm so it's a little less painful. I wish I could do more, but…"

"Don't worry about it," Tony said. "As long as you can keep all the major components from falling off, I'll survive."

Sam narrowed his eyes and scanned the opposite shore, and not for the first time. He was obviously worried about Steve.

And maybe Tony was, too. "I can't help but feel like we're neglecting our jobs here," he said. "Searching for survivors — wasn't that the deal?"

"You up for it?" Sam asked.

_No, not remotely._ "Yeah, no problem," said Tony. "But, fair warning, if we run into the enemy, I suspect my contribution will be limited to trenchant remarks."

Sam chuckled. "Understood. All right, let's take a look around."

It was bad safety practice to leave a campfire unattended, but frankly Tony wouldn't have objected if the whole fucking forest had burned down. The process of standing up established that his legs were still working, and that the pain in his shoulder wasn't going to kill him, no matter how hard it tried. He couldn't possibly use his sword, but he slid it back in its sheath anyway.

"If anything else made it out, it'd be downstream, right?"

"There's not a whole lot of downstream left," Sam told him. "Ten yards more, and we'd've gone over the edge."

Tony could have done without knowing that. "In retrospect, this plan of ours was somewhat less than foolproof."

They walked west. Tony tried to chip in by keeping his eyes open for motion. Sam, who had tracking experience or else was better at faking it, scanned the ground and so forth, and seemed to find no noteworthy signs.

After about ten minutes of very slow and quiet walking, they reached the outpost. It was, in a word, toast.

Where the greenhouses had been, now there were vaguely rectangular mounds of ash. A few charred bodies, species unrecognizable, lay here and there, and so did wooden beams and portions of walls and roofs. Nothing moved.

"I had to tell him," Tony blurted. "Right? That there might have been a cure somewhere in here? I mean, if I hadn't said anything and it had come out later…"

"Yeah," Sam said. "You had to say it. You're right." He paused. "Do you really think you could have reversed it?"

"I'm sure the scorpions could have," said Tony. "So I could have, if I'd gotten enough time."

It was true. The garrison's control tree had taught him quite a bit about Nyth tech. They couldn't invent completely new organisms for every situation — that was absurd. It came down to variations on a few common themes, scaled up or down to fit the circumstance, all responding to the same simple biochemical commands: 'grow', 'hold steady', 'shrink'. All he'd needed were the microscopic versions of the tools he'd already figured out. He could have done it.

But it didn't matter now.

The barrier threads had been destroyed by the heat, and the posts that had supported them had mostly fallen over. In a rare stroke of luck, the pair of posts on opposite sides of the river had toppled toward each other. Neither was long enough to span the entire length, but they each made it more than halfway and they'd landed just a short hop apart. That was going to be the way across.

Tony and Sam completed a slow circuit of the southern half of the compound. The ashes were free of tracks. Nothing living had crawled its way out. Steve was nowhere to be found.

They turned around and retraced their steps. The fire, when they got back to it, was fine. It was so fine, in fact, that there were two six-legged bears sleeping beside it.

"I see our campsite was just right," Tony said. "You want to tell them to shove off?"

"Do _you_ want to tell them to shove off?" Sam countered.

He considered the problem. Each bear was easily twice his size. "I would, but on second thought, let's not be inhospitable."

It was exactly as much fun to sit down as it had been to stand up. Tony made a controlled descent, then held his breath until he was sure he wasn't going to start coughing. Sam settled down next to him. In the light of the fire, Tony noticed that the old bloodstains on his sleeves had been joined by new ones.

"Hey," Tony said, pointing at the offending marks. "I feel like my handiwork isn't getting the respect it deserves."

"Yeah," Sam said, and gingerly flexed his hands. "The punctures aren't that deep, but the bleeding won't stop. I think the spines were tipped with an anticoagulant."

_The fun never ends._ "You got anything in your first-aid kit that'll help?"

"You mean, the first-aid kit that's in my pack on the other side of the river?"

"Yeah, that one."

"No, nothing."

"Okay. So what does that leave — pressure and elevation, right?"

Sam shot him a quick grin. "Not bad, Stark."

He shrugged. "Elementary fluid dynamics."

"If I could afford to spend any time lying down, that's exactly what I'd be doing right now," Sam said. "As it is, this'll just have to wait."

It wasn't just the blood, either. Sam looked… well, Tony wasn't one to make personal comments, but he looked like shit. He was noticeably more wan than when they'd left, and his forehead was dotted with perspiration.

"No, seriously," Tony said, "if you bleed to death, I'll never hear the end of it from Rogers. Got any more of those bandages?"

"Yeah, a few."

"Then lie down, get comfortable, and I'll do whatever I'm supposed to do to get the bleeding under control."

Sam acquiesced. The two of them repeated their bandaging routine, then Tony propped up his arms.

After a long stretch of nothing but the wheezing snores of the two bears, Sam said, "I've been trying to figure out the right time to mention this, but there isn't one, so I'm just going to mention it. Steve told me about Siberia."

Siberia had been fifteen months ago, but the reference still punched him in the heart. Tony absorbed the blow, and replied, "Figures."

"He shouldn't have kept information about your parents from you. I told him that. And for the record, I never had even a hint of this at the time. I wasn't in the bunker with Zola — that was just Steve and Natasha."

Oh, look. There were still a few new ways to twist the knife.

Carefully, delicately, Tony echoed, "Natasha?"

Sam's eyes went wide. "Oh hell. You didn't know… _Shit_. Tony, I'm sorry, I thought—"

But Tony made a vigorous and painful shushing motion in his direction, then covered his mouth with his good hand and tried not to giggle at the sheer fucking absurdity.

"Of _course_ more people knew," he announced to the sky when he could speak again. "There was probably an ad in the _New York_ fucking _Times_. I don't even know why I'm surprised. No, don't sit up," he added to Sam, who'd started to do exactly that. "You didn't say it to screw me over, I would have found out eventually… it's fine."

"Is it?"

"No, but I'm an old pro at selective repression," Tony said. "I've done this before — survival first, _then_ emotional repercussions."

With no small amount of effort, he gathered up the whole thing — all the grief and pain and humiliation that was so eager to come rushing back with this new twist — and dumped it in the box marked 'later'. Denial at its finest; watch the master at work.

(At least he'd have something new to talk to Kel about. Their repertoire had been getting stale.)

A rustling noise caught his attention. Tony turned to look, and… oh, what the _fuck_. It was… it was a much shorter version of the eyeball on a stalk that they'd seen in the greenhouse, slinking by on a dense carpet of roiling vines. It paused in its undulating progress, and rotated to look at them.

"Nope," Tony said. "We are not doing mobile plant eyeballs." He stood (that hurt) and drew his sword (that _really_ hurt). "Hey, Wilson, that's the same type of thing that pricked you, right?"

"Yeah — why?"

"If it's got the same coating, maybe the healers could use a sample."

Tony advanced cautiously. The eyeball eyeballed him, and shuffled back a little. "Easy there, little fellow," he murmured. "I'm just gonna hack some bits off of you. No big deal, just—"

He lunged and sliced, and severed a couple of the tendrils. There was no piece of the creature that could have possibly made a shrieking noise, but it shrieked anyway and bunched itself up, then fucking  _leaped_ at him. Tony backpedalled and slashed wildly (his shoulder _screamed_ and he was pretty sure he did, too). But his blade made contact. The wretched little weed hit the ground and Tony chopped down again. This time he caught the eyeball, which splatted. The tendrils stopped moving.

Once his collarbone stopped inciting to mutiny, Tony declared, "I hate this planet."

"You've said that before," said Sam.

"No, I truly and profoundly _despise_ this planet."

"If you pick that thing up, be careful of the spines."

Good call. Tony grabbed his old shirt and used it to bundle up a generous selection of tendrils, avoiding anything that had eyeball attached. He left it several feet away from humans and bears, just in case it wasn't actually dead, then resumed his seat by the fire.

Sam was sweating even more, and blood had already started to soak through his new bandages. Tony, unthinking, touched the back of his wrist to Sam's forehead.

"Gee, Stark, most guys have to buy me a drink first before—"

"Yeah, yeah. Look, you're burning up, and this is a little outside my field. Is there anything I'm supposed to be doing?"

"Fluids and cold compresses," Sam said. "Except we don't have any clean water here. Listen, Tony, I'm getting anxious about Steve. We should have heard something by now."

"You want to cross back and look for him?"

"Yeah, I do."

So did Tony. So the two of them packed up and got ready to head out. Sam kicked dirt over the fire, while Tony apologized to the bears and gathered his bundle of vines.

They returned to the pair of fallen barrier poles. Crossing with one arm out of commission was only mildly agonizing. He made the hop from one pole to the other without falling in, and so did Sam.

It had of course occurred to Tony that Steve could be late because he'd run into the enemy. Once he and Sam were on solid ground, they both took their weapons in hand and proceeded with caution around the northern perimeter of the outpost.

The north road marked the halfway point, and that was where they found the first of the bodies. It was a Minotaur, dead. Cause of death: multiple stab wounds.

The next one, in a similar state, was a few yards into the trees. By the third, Tony was sensing a trend.

The fourth was lying facedown with a knife in its throat. Steve's hand was still closed around the hilt. The rest of Steve's body was mostly concealed by the bulk, bloody and still.

Sam and Tony dropped to their knees. Sam heaved at the Mino's body and managed to lever it to the side, while Tony touched his fingers to Steve's throat.

There was a pulse. Faint. But there.

Steve's eyes fluttered open. He looked from Sam to Tony, and whispered, "Sorry I missed the rendezvous."

His uniform was torn and covered in blood. Some of it wasn't his. But a lot of it was.

"I need my pack," Sam said. " _Go_."

But Tony'd barely gotten a step before Sam called after him, "No, hold it! With this much blood in the air, every jellyfish for miles will be inbound. Check the trees, and don't run!"

"Got it," Tony called back, and went on at a brisk walk.

The jellyfish were giant mounds of ivy-looking stuff. They weren't subtle in the least — unless, of course, it was a pitch-black night and a person was in too much of a hurry to check every branch.

Tony found the small depression where they'd stashed all their gear, and grabbed Sam's knapsack.

Then came the rattle.

"No," Tony said to the spider as he carefully backed off and angled away from it. " _No_. I do _not_ have time for you right now. Is that clear?"

It crept down out of the trees. Its fangs twitched.

"Don't even think about it. Seriously, fella, don't you even—"

It leapt. Tony dropped the knapsack and flung himself to the side, and—

_(shoulder rolls are contraindicated when clavicle is broken_ )

—and when the red finally cleared from his vision and he could breathe without screaming, he looked behind him. The jellyfish, now sated, was creeping its way back up into the canopy. A couple of leg segments were sticking out from its underside.

Useful monsters, on occasion.

"Hey, Tony!" Sam called. "Everything okay?"

"I despise this planet!" he yelled back, and paid for it with another coughing fit.

"Then despise it over here!" came the response.

Tony slung the bag over the shoulder that wasn't trying to kill him, and jogged back.

Steve was unconscious with his shirt open, revealing a mess of bruises and cuts. Sam snatched his bag out of Tony's hand and unpacked his medical kit.

"He was stabbed in the chest," Sam said. His voice was flat and detached. "Partially collapsed the lung. I need to run a tube. Set up a lantern."

"Right."

Tony followed orders. The little gourd began to emit its orange glow. Sam got on with his procedure, and Tony did what he could to help, which amounted to handing Sam the things he asked for and not throwing up.

One incision and a length of tubing later, Steve was breathing a little easier and Sam sat back on his heels.

"Okay, that should ease the pressure and keep him stable for a while," he said. "But we need to get him back to camp as soon as possible. Transportation strikes me as an engineering problem."

"Yeah. We can rig a sled for one of the horses to drag. Easy." Suitable specs had lined themselves up as soon as Tony'd seen Steve on the ground.

"And before we go, we need to refill the water reservoirs and set up the filters."

"Sure. Stay with Steve, I'll go—" Except more coughing happened instead. Every hack felt like his lungs were trying to tie themselves in knots.

Sam's hand pressed gently into his back. " _You_ stay with Steve," he said once Tony could breathe again. "I'll get this one. Take it easy. And start planning that sled."

"Well, if you insist," Tony wheezed. "By the way, you were right about the jellyfish. One of them found something else to eat, but there are more where it came from. Keep your head up."

"Will do."

He vanished, leaving Tony alone with Steve.

It wasn't so awkward as long as one of them was unconscious. But sure enough, Steve began to stir again.

"Sam?"

"Sorry," Tony said. "Just me. Sam'll be back in a minute."

"Oh." He opened his eyes. With some effort, they focused. "Hi, Tony."

"Hi. Now save your strength, save your breath, save all of it. We're getting you back to camp, and Aaron will sort all this out. Just… relax and hang in there, all right?"

"All right," Steve said, then promptly did the opposite. "Are you okay? You look pale."

He sighed. "Well, I've got a broken bone or two and I'm pretty sure I'm coming down with pneumonia, but other than that, I'm great. How about you?"

Steve's attention drifted from Tony's face to somewhere up in the canopy. "Actually," he said, "I think I'm in pretty bad shape here."

"Figures. You were already one arm short when you decided to take on four Minotaurs. Has anyone ever told you that your decision-making skills occasionally suck?"

"Yeah," Steve said, still addressing the sky. "I've heard that."

His breathing was labored. Every exhalation carried this note of… of relief to it, or something. Like the preceding inhalation had been a terrible inconvenience and he wasn't sure he could be bothered to do it again. The sound made Tony want to punch things.

"Tony," Steve said. Exhaled. Inhaled. "If I—"

"Don't even think about finishing that sentence."

"But if there isn't a chance later, I just—"

"No, shut up, just _shut up_ with all that," Tony snapped, and leaned over to look him in the eyes. "You want to know why? Because dying is the most craven, pusillanimous, _chickenshit_ way of getting the last word in an argument, and there's no way in hell I'm giving you the satisfaction, so just lie there and fucking _breathe_."

But since Steve never, _ever_ did what he was told, instead he rasped, "I should have trusted you more. I'm sorry. About everything. I should have—"

"What part of _shut up_ are you not getting? We will make it back to camp, we will get ourselves patched up, and then we will spend the next five months working out our differences through a sequence of agonizing conversations rife with defensiveness, misunderstandings and temper tantrums. _Like adults_. Understand?"

Steve gazed up at him. "We'll talk?"

" _Yes_ , dammit. Will that keep you quiet and respiring?"

He nodded, silent again, and Tony finally sat back. The flash of rage departed as quickly as it arrived, leaving him hollow.

Quietly, not knowing if he was speaking for his own sake or for Steve's, Tony added, "Turns out I don't want you dead, either. So don't you dare."

Sam arrived soon after with one of the two non-Georges. He reported that all three horses were safe, and so were the rest of their supplies. Tony had already spotted most of the branches they would need to build the sled. Between his and Sam's three working hands, they got it lashed together, strapped Steve in, and secured it to Non-George's saddle. Sam dressed the rest of Steve's wounds, then Tony changed Sam's bandages again, then Sam tied Tony's bad arm in place. Sam left the group one last time, and returned with the other two horses and the rest of their gear.

Help was fifty miles away. Sweating, coughing, and bleeding, they hit the road.

 

* * *

 

The first thing Natasha did once she was awake and lucid was establish to her own satisfaction that Clint was making a full recovery. After he'd passed a barrage of cognitive tests, she was prepared to concede that he was fine.

"Seriously, Nat, _you've_ hit me harder in the head than that lizard did," Clint said, and tossed the latest barrage of cognitive tests back to her. "My sight's fine, my aim's fine, I feel great. So you can quit leaping out from around corners and pelting me with random objects any time now."

Natasha fielded the collection of pencils, ration packets, and other miscellany, and stashed them in her pockets. "As long as you're sure, and Kel's sure."

"Sure we're sure." He retrieved the arrow he'd been whittling, and shot a look to the west. "I wish Steve could have waited just twelve hours. I should be out there with them."

"If that ship shows up, we'll need you here."

"I know," he sighed. "I'm indispensable. How's your repair work coming along?"

Natasha's replacement skin had progressed from shoulder to mid-forearm. Her wrist and hand were still encased in the heavy film that Kel reapplied twice daily. The new skin itched; the burns were numb.

The scarring was surprisingly mild, all things considered. There was some puckering down the inside of her arm, like the skin had come off a roll and hadn't been sized exactly right, but other than that it was smooth and unmarked. The arm was functioning correctly so far, but Natasha knew that she was still days or weeks short of a complete recovery.

"Making progress," she said. "It's the usual story — I'm months ahead of where I would be on Earth, and I still want to complain about how long it's taking."

"Yeah. These empaths are spoiling us rotten."

The second thing Natasha did was check up on Jean. On the third morning after Steve's team had departed, she took a stroll through the compound and found Jean hanging by her fingertips from the edge of a roof, doing chin-ups. The scar from her stab wound was just visible above her waistband.

"Did you consult your physician before starting that exercise program?" Natasha asked.

"My physician is offsite at the moment," Jean replied. A sharp exhale marked each upswing. "And she's cleared me for moderate exercise."

"You have an interesting definition of 'moderate'."

"A necessary one. At my age, it's much easier to lose muscle mass than to put it back on."

Jean dropped to the ground, and stretched her side with just a faint hint of a grimace. "How are you doing?"

"Improving," Natasha said with a glance at her arm. "Looking forward to getting my hand back. Thinking about Steve and his team."

Jean gestured for Natasha to join her. Together, they started an easy stroll east toward the coast.

"It was supposed to take forty-eight hours," Jean said. "It didn't. That means either they had to race the enemy to the outpost, or they're lying dead in the proverbial ditch. Or both." She shot Natasha a rueful smile. "Remind me, please, that I can't go after them."

"You can do whatever you want," Natasha said. "You're the boss."

"If you actually thought that I would agree that being the boss meant that I could do whatever I want, you would never refer to me as the boss."

"I followed that sentence, but only because I'm highly trained in disinformation and counterintelligence."

They both chuckled.

Past the vault was the bare stretch of dirt where cargo could be staged for loading onto a ship. The sun was still fairly low in the sky, and its warmth was a pleasant counterpoint to the cool wind off the sea. They'd had a stretch of good weather recently; this day looked to be more of the same.

Jean spent a lot of time by the shore, staring out over the water. Her eyes were on the horizon now.

"At the risk of spoiling your fun," she said, "may I ask what psychological weakness you're probing for this time?"

"I suppose I deserved that." The comment hadn't been delivered with any particular venom, but Natasha could sense that a wall had gone up. "You're worried about them, and so am I," she said. "You know there's nothing we can do about it, and so do I. I'd hoped you wouldn't mind some company. That's all."

Jean's demeanor still held a touch of skepticism, but she accepted the words without argument. After a cautious pause, she said, "It was an act of profound cruelty to send Steve back to that place. I wish there'd been another way."

"You didn't send him," Natasha replied. "He sent himself. You couldn't have stopped him, and you would have been wrong to try. This had to be done."

Jean did her little head-tilt of 'you're right but I refuse to admit it'. "One can understand the correctness of an action while still regretting its cost."

"There's going to be more of that once the war heats up."

"Yes." Her head turned slowly as she scanned the water. "Kel thinks it'll be another two weeks or so before the transport ship gets here. We haven't heard anything from Vision yet, which I want to take as a good sign. But every time I look at the horizon, I expect to see a fleet of warships coming over it."

Natasha glanced that way herself. "I don't think that'll happen, but if it does, we'll handle it like we've handled everything else."

"You mean, 'barely'?"

"It's always 'barely'. Take it from someone who's helped avert a couple global catastrophes: 'barely' is as much as you ever dare to hope for."

"How comforting."

"Hey." Natasha stepped out in front of her. "We knew from the start that we were maneuvering within a narrow margin. What's changed for you?"

Jean looked away, and her jaw tightened. "A war can be won or lost when one side does something that the other thinks is impossible." She gestured behind her. "We've done ours already. We drove them out. They'll have to retake their foothold on this side of the sea. I don't think we get another. So it remains to weather theirs. I didn't think they could have long-distance energy weapons. I was wrong. If that sea monster had had a better aim, it would have wiped us out in a single blast."

"None of us saw that coming," Natasha said. "You can't anticipate everything, and you'll paralyze yourself if you try. We prepare for what we can, and we trust ourselves to deal with the rest."

There was something else. Natasha could see the indecision playing out on Jean's face. Something she wanted to say but was afraid to admit.

They'd clashed, the two of them, probably more than Natasha should have allowed. It had left Jean wary of her. Guarded. Natasha tested people by pushing on them, but she didn't push now. She took a gentle step back to Jean's side, and joined her in her contemplation of the sea.

"That night," Jean said softly after a time, "when we first ran outside and saw that the building had been destroyed… I have never been so frightened in my life. I was terrified out of my wits."

"No. You were terrified, but you kept your wits. That's how I know you've got what it takes to see this through."

Footsteps from behind them were approaching at an easy jog. It was Kel: she'd left the previous evening to hunt and to scout.

"You should be careful of the water," she said when she reached them. "Tony still hadn't learned how to turn off the water-socks before he had to leave."

"They're snakes, not socks," Jean sighed. "What did you learn?"

"The Geckos traveled south. Not to the west road. They moved faster than I thought, and they had the leaves that hide their scent from kethyshi. Could have reached the outpost already."

"Could they have gotten there before our people?" Natasha asked.

"I hope not. The humans tracked them for a time, then left for the road. I followed as far as I could. No signs of serious injury. At least, not on the first day."

"All right," said Jean. "We know why they're late. Now there's nothing we can do but hope that they're on their way back."

 

* * *

 

When another giant spider showed up, it was an engineering problem. Solution: deploy the giant spider net, and join Sam in goading the thing into stepping on it. Hacking ensued.

When Sam's fever continued to rise to the point where he slid sideways and tumbled off Non-George Number Two, it was an engineering problem. Solution: water-soaked rags to try and cool him off, and a hitching line repurposed as a safety harness.

"Watch out for the barrier," Sam muttered. "Camp barrier. Not marked."

"Good call," Tony said, and sponged off his face again.

"Kel fed an oppossum to it our first time out. Splatted all over the road."

"Thanks for the imagery."

When Tony's cough continued to worsen, every spasm an exercise in agony, it was an engineering problem, although he privately had to admit that he wasn't sure how. Solution, a Stark classic: ignore it. George expressed his sympathy by licking Tony's ear.

When Steve's breathing took a turn for the worse, it was technically an engineering problem, just not exactly his department. Solution, part one: clear the chest tube (Sam had showed him how) and raise the elevation of the sled. Solution, part two: pick up the pace. Both solutions were unsatisfactory.

When they hit a steep hill, and a dragon trio showed up in the middle of the second switchback, it was an engineering problem, and this one was right in Tony's wheelhouse: he used the last two grenades and blew the fuckers up.

After that, time got fuzzy. Tony couldn't remember how many times the sun rose and set. He remembered crossing the camp barrier and entering the safe travel corridor, but for the life of him he couldn't figure out which one had come first. He remembered imagining that the camp was just around the next bend so many times, there was no telling which version of it had been the real one.

Then he was waking up on something soft. Nothing hurt. It was lovely.

Tony opened his eyes. Above him were skylights and a wooden ceiling. To his right, Spider-Man was standing over him with folded arms and a heavy scowl.

"Mr. Stark, I _told_ you to be _careful_."

 


	41. Chapter 41

The next time Tony woke up, he was alone. Going by the view through the skylight, it was the next morning. He was still in the waiting room of the camp infirmary, which had been converted to a recovery ward by dint of moving in a cot and hanging a privacy curtain.

Aaron had filled him in on his condition the night before, and it was pretty much what he'd guessed: broken collarbone, pneumonia, minor infections in other wounds. His shoulder was immobilized rather emphatically with bandages and wooden splints (he could have done the job with half the material, but whatever), and he had one of those vine IVs in his other arm. Waking up brought about his first coughing fit of the day, but there were some painkillers in his medication and he was floaty and detached enough that his shoulder could forgive him for it.

Tony caught his breath again, and had just enough time to wonder what he was supposed to do next before Aaron popped in. He looked exhausted; between his three patients, Tony guessed that he'd been up all night. But his greeting was as cheerful as ever. Tony matched the pleasant good morning as best he could, then let himself drift through the ensuing checkup. Bandages and patches got changed, and the IV went away.

Once the poking and prodding was done, Aaron pulled up a stool and settled down beside him. "How do you feel?" he asked.

Sign was awkward with one hand, but Tony did his best. "Like an elephant sat on me," he replied. "But only a small one."

Aaron grinned. "That's a good sign. You're responding well to the antibiotics. It will take a few days for your lungs to clear, but after that I expect a quick recovery. Be patient with your shoulder: I'm still healing the bone, and it will be sore for about a week after I'm done."

"I'll try to treat your craftsmanship with the respect it deserves," Tony said. "How are Sam and Steve?"

"Also improving," Aaron said. "Sam's fever broke early this morning. The poison seems to be dissipating from his system. Steve needs a lot more rest, but he's stable and I've healed the worst of the wounds."

"Good. You should think about getting some rest yourself."

"Soon." This time Aaron's smile was rueful. "Whenever you Avengers show up in camp, I end up working overtime."

"I hate to add to your workload, but has word reached you about…" He tried to keep the flash of annoyance off his face, not that it made much difference around an empath. _Dammit, Romanoff_. "Natasha picked up some bad burns on her arm and hand. Last I heard, Kel had the tissue damage under control, but she wanted your help to repair the nerves."

"Yes, Gabriela told me," Aaron replied. He glanced away, and his hands took on an uncharacteristic hesitance. "Of course I want to help," he said. "Kel is right — she doesn't have the touch for that kind of work. But it would mean leaving the camp for a week or more, and I just…" He shook his head in obvious dismay. "I just don't see how I can do it. We've got the five-month exams coming up soon, and the logging and carpentry that everyone does now aren't exactly safe. What if there's an accident, or—"

"Hey," Tony said gently, and held up his hand to stem the flow. Sometimes he had to remind himself of just how young Aaron was. "Of course your job here is important. Jean will understand that. The backup plan is for Natasha to come here as soon as the garrison team can spare her."

Aaron took a breath and unknotted a little. "Yes, that would be better." He shot a look over his shoulder in the direction of the door, and added, "Spider-Man has to leave soon with the next convoy, but he wants to see you again first. Is that all right?"

"Yeah, of course."

So Aaron went out, and Peter came in.

The two of them had talked for a while the night before. The kid had wanted to know every detail of the mission (" _So you crossed the barrier. Then what happened?_ "), and Tony'd done his best to oblige until a particularly bad fit of coughing had brought Aaron back in and put an end to visiting hours. He hoped to do a little better this time.

"Hey, kid," he said. "How've you been?"

Remarkably, the scowl on Peter's face had not abated even a little. "Worried about you."

"Come on, we went over this last night. I'm fine."

"You don't look fine. You look _awful_."

Tony sighed. "Thanks."

"You look awful, and Falcon looks awful, and Captain America looks _really_ awful—"

"Well, as long as Rogers looks worse than I do."

"And this mission was only supposed to take two days, but now it's been _five_ , and you weren't supposed to go to the scorpions' outpost at all, but you went there anyway and blew it up, and you were supposed to go back to the garrison, but instead you came here because everyone was hurt! Jean's gotta be completely freaking out by now!"

That last one hit home. "Lucky for me…" Tony paused. The configuration wasn't working for him. "Actually, give me a second." Then he took a stab at sitting up.

The process took some time. Peter used that time to fret. "Should you be doing that?" he asked. "It doesn't look like you should be doing that. Does your shoulder hurt? Do you need any help? Should I get Aaron?"

Tony paused mid-effort and glowered. "Kid, are you mothering me?"

"No, it's just that you're hurt and you're supposed to be resting, and you're _not_."

"I'm also not eating my vegetables, and last night I snuck out after curfew." Tony attained verticality, and stopped to catch his breath. The shoulder didn't scream, the lungs didn't gripe, and Aaron didn't show up and yell at him. Not bad. The last step was to swing his legs around so he was facing the kid, and this too was accomplished without any personal catastrophes.

"As I was saying: lucky for me, you'll have to face Jean before I will. I need you to fill her in on what happened." Tony gestured to his shoulder. "And feel free to downplay this a little."

Peter was unimpressed. "You mean, the part where you caught pneumonia and broke your collarbone, and Falcon got poisoned, and Captain America needed surgery again?"

"Exactly," he said. "Don't lead with that. And when she drags it out of you, make sure you stress the part where Aaron has everything under control. Right?"

"Yeah, I guess."

Jean was not going to enjoy this particular report no matter how Peter spun it. But Tony would be a little happier if Peter's rendition didn't put the three of them at death's door.

"So you've seen Sam and Steve?" he asked.

"Yeah. Falcon was at breakfast. He told us a bit about the mission."

"He's up and about, then. Good sign. And Steve is…"

"Sleeping still," Peter said, and jerked his chin toward the adjacent room. "But Aaron said he'd probably let him wake up later today."

"And my little inconvenience will wear off in a few days, and everything will be back to normal," Tony concluded. "So you'll walk Jean through the mission, tell her that we're all doing fine, and let her know that we'll be along as soon as everyone's fit to travel. Got it?"

"Yeah. I can do that." Peter glanced toward the door, then back, and shifted awkwardly in place. There was a certain lack of forward progress.

Tony crossed his good arm over his bad one and tried to look authoritative. "Okay, let's hear it."

"I should have gone with you," Peter said, and sidled in a little closer. "I thought about coming after you. I thought about it a _lot_."

"And if you had, I would have been _extremely_ unhappy," Tony replied. "You had a job to do, and you did it. You made the right call."

Peter sighed. "I just… I want to keep everyone safe. I'm _supposed_ to, you know? With Vision gone, it's just me and Kel and Wanda with superpowers. We're the ones who should be doing all the risky stuff, but I'm just running these wagons back and forth, while you're going out and getting—"

" _Whoa_ ," Tony said sharply. "Slow it right down there, kiddo. No one expects you to take on all the risks by yourself. No one expects Kel or Wanda to do it, either. The job's too big for that. We need all hands. Jean's the one with her eye on the big picture, and you know she spends most of her time figuring out how to put her resources where they're needed, right?"

"Yeah, she does," he admitted.

"If we didn't have those supplies you're moving, the enemy wouldn't have to lift a finger. They could just starve us out. What you're doing is every bit as critical as the combat operations."

"I guess," Peter said. "Jean showed me some of her notes one time. I didn't realize how much of war was, like, spreadsheets."

"There you go. Do you want to be the one who screws up her calculations?"

"No way."

"And now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure someone told me a while back that getting injured sometimes was all part of being an Av… an Av…" He snapped his fingers a couple times. "An Av-something. This ringing any bells for you?"

Peter gave an exaggerated eyeroll. " _Okay_ ," he groaned. "You guys are fine and I need to keep working. I get it."

(Tony was still figuring out this whole teenager business, but one thing he'd learned was that exasperation was a signal that he'd done his job correctly.)

There was a knock at the door, and Gabriela poked her head around the curtain a moment later. "Hey, Tony," she said. "They taking good care of you here?"

"Oh, sure. I'm a regular customer."

"If your team wants to travel back to the garrison on a twelve-oxen luxury liner, our next departure is in ten days."

"That might be a little outside our travel budget, but we'll keep your organization in mind."

She shot him a grin, then shifted her attention. "Spider-Man, we're starting to load up the wagons. You think you'll be ready to leave soon?"

Peter looked at Tony, then back. "Yeah. I'm right behind you."

Aaron came back in afterward. Tony'd intended to make a pitch for being discharged from the infirmary, but somehow he got redirected into lying down and taking a nap. So _that_ killed off a big chunk of the day. But once he was awake again (and feeling somewhat better, he had to admit), Aaron reclassified him as mobile.

His first stop was the treatment room next door. Sam was there already, and acknowledged him with a nod.

Steve was asleep on the table. Exhaustion, blood loss, and the inevitable infections in his wounds had all taken their toll. He was heavily bandaged, and he had an IV in his arm. But his color was good, and his breathing was even. The overall impression was far more optimistic than the first time Tony had sat in this room and kept vigil.

"This is a bit familiar," Sam said quietly.

"Yeah."

"Also a bit different."

"Yeah."

"You did damned good out there."

"So did you."

"I know," Sam said, and they both chuckled. "You staying awhile?"

Tony nodded. "Yeah. Guess I am."

 

* * *

 

Jean's poker face was good. She absorbed young Spider-Man's rather meandering report with barely a twitch.

"Thank you very much, Peter," she said when he was done. "I appreciate the attention to detail. And Aaron indicated that everyone was recovering well?"

"Yeah, absolutely!" Peter said, and Natasha wondered how much time he'd spent talking himself into his steadfast positivity. "Mr. Stark's pneumonia is clearing up. Falcon's fever broke and the anticoagulant wore off — Aaron wasn't sure why, it just did it on its own. He's keeping the vine sample around anyway, just in case. And Captain America still wasn't awake when I left, but Aaron healed most of the stab wounds and had him on intravenous fluids and supplements to replenish the blood loss. So." He gave a firm nod as if he'd personally signed off on the assorted treatment plans.

"I'm glad to hear that," Jean said solemnly. "Did Tony or Sam give you any indication of when they planned to return this way?"

"Mr. Stark made it sound like he wanted to leave soon, but I actually hope they wait until my team gets back so we can all go together. I mean, I know you're expecting the supply ship soon and you need people here, but I don't want them walking through the forest by themselves anymore."

That got her lip to twitch a little. "I agree with you," she said. "Hopefully they'll come to the same conclusion. Good work. Can you let the rest of your team know that we'll be serving dinner shortly?"

"Sure thing!" And off he went.

Natasha saw the slightly forced expression of geniality fade from Jean's face as the door closed behind Peter. She saw Kel, who wasn't as polished at policing her responses, tighten her jaw and breathe out slowly. She saw Clint's slight frown as he too read the tension in the room and attempted to identify the source.

Then she drew a breath to ask the obvious question, but before she got out so much as a syllable, Jean's hand came up to cut her off.

In brusque sign, Jean said, "His ears are too good. Tomorrow."

Natasha met Clint's eyes, and they mutually agreed to let it go as requested. Meanwhile, Kel and Jean had a silent exchange of their own, after which Kel beckoned to Clint and the two of them left the office.

Jean leaned back in her chair. "It's clear that Aaron can't leave the camp right now," she said, and gave a discreet nod toward Natasha's arm "I hope you know that if you want to return with the convoy tomorrow, you have my full support."

"And leave you with only three to handle the ship?" Natasha asked.

"We can cope with the ship. If delay imperils your prognosis, don't delay."

The hand, undeniably, was a problem. Not so much for cosmetic reasons anymore: the scarring was down to just a few puckered lines along the edges of her palm, and the fingernails were finally starting to grow back. While the flesh was still swollen and tender, those symptoms were receding daily. No, the real issue was the numbness. It occurred in isolated, nebulous patches that sometimes seemed to shift position, but there was no question that she'd lost dexterity and sensitivity.

Kel continued to work on reducing the scar tissue, but she was reluctant to touch the nerve endings. "I could make it a little better, or a lot worse," she'd said. "This means it's time for me to stop. Aaron is much better at this kind of work."

The damage did become harder to repair as time went on. Kel had been reluctant to offer a concrete timeline, but she'd admitted that a full recovery could be out of reach already. It was… concerning.

(Plus there was the part of her training — understood, accepted, contained, but never completely silenced — that _knew_ what happened to Black Widows who became nonfunctional.)

But those things were less important than the safety of the team.

"Kel isn't worried yet," Natasha said with casual inaccuracy. "I'll stay here until the guys can replace me."

Jean nodded and let it drop.

They passed an uneventful evening with their guests, and helped them to load the wagons the next morning. The grain stores had already been shipped out, save what the garrison team needed to live on. This convoy included manufacturing and medical supplies, tools, and two pairs of horses from the stable. Jean handed Gab her habitual report with updated instructions for Tavleen.

After the convoy left, the garrison team dealt with their daily chores, a process that had become well honed over the last few weeks. Then Natasha and Clint followed Jean back to her office and took up flanking positions.

Natasha folded her arms and said, "Well?"

Jean came to a halt in front of her desk, facing away from her audience. She was silent for several seconds as the tension built in her shoulders.

Then she wound up and slammed her knuckles into the top of the desk hard enough to crack the wood. " _Son of a bitch_!"

Clint blinked a few times. "So this isn't gonna be a _good_ surprise."

Jean spun on her heel and began pacing the narrow width of the office. "I told him _specifically and directly_ to leave the outpost alone," she snarled. "'Don't even think about taking the outpost yourselves,' I said. I used those _precise_ words. This was _not_ supposed to happen!"

Natasha shook her head slightly in response to Clint's quizzical look. She had no idea what the problem was, either.

Clint said, "Look, I'll admit that the best way to make sure Cap does something is to tell him specifically and directly not to do it. But c'mon — he didn't burn the place for kicks. If Spidey's report was anywhere near accurate, he didn't have a choice."

This did not assuage Jean's ire or slow her pacing.

A profoundly insecure leader might throw a temper tantrum over someone else's display of initiative, but that had never been Jean's style. "There's clearly more to this than Steve disarranging your schedule," Natasha said. "What's the problem?"

It took a few more laps for Jean to get control of her temper. Finally she stilled, and paused with her eyes closed to take a few calming breaths.

Then she turned to Natasha and gave a faint smile. "The one saving grace of this day is that I seem to be ahead of you on something," she said. "A rare achievement."

"Jean…"

"After the war, we still need to get everyone home through the final portal." She dusted off her knuckles, and flexed the hand with a grimace. "Of course, we first have to _find_ the final portal. This, I supposed, would not be a problem, since the Nyth are able to track them. The technology they use to do so was developed and stored at their research outpost. The very same one that was _recently set on fire_."

Into the stunned silence that followed, Clint eventually offered, "Whoops."

"Yes," Jean replied. "That is certainly one term for it. Though I can also think of others."

Natasha found herself needing a moment to regain her bearings. It had been a long time since she'd been blindsided quite so thoroughly — not only by the magnitude of the screw-up but by the fact that she'd overlooked it. At that very first strategy meeting, five long months ago, Jean had mentioned that they would need to steal the scorpions' tech for tracking the portals. Where else could it have come from but their R&D department? She should have remembered. But after every conflict and setback and emergency that had arisen since, that detail had just… fallen off her radar.

(Maybe Jean should have been more explicit in her warning to Steve when the possibility of his returning to the outpost had first arisen. Then again, maybe it hadn't occurred to her that he would find a way to raze it to the ground. Natasha certainly hadn't seen that coming.)

"Okay, I get why you're pissed," Clint said to Jean, "but I don't think this is game over. Back on Earth, Wanda could sense the portal from hundreds of miles away, hours before it showed up. We can use the first four sites to track its course and put her in the right general area, then she'll do the rest. It opens for a few hours on this side, right? The timing could get a little dicey, but…"

"Yes, I thought of that," said Jean. "We seem to have no other choice now. And there will be consequences."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

She looked at Natasha, and arched her eyebrows. It was a challenge.

"It means that she just took Wanda out of the war," Natasha said.

Clint did a double-take. "Hang on a sec…"

"If we die defending the camp," said Jean, "the civilians can still go home. If _she_ dies defending it, everyone dies with her."

"Uh, make that _successfully_ defending the camp," Clint countered. "Which gets a whole lot harder if our strongest player is benched."

"Granted. But any action that puts Wanda at risk is now an all-or-nothing play. We don't resort to those until we have nothing left to lose."

"We might not be as trapped as you think," Natasha said. "Vegetation grows back after forest fires. Given who we're dealing with, I assume that the tech in question is some kind of plant. Maybe it can be salvaged."

"I thought of that as well," Jean replied. "But I absolutely _cannot_ send a team right now. It would be a fourth distinct location for us to defend, and we're already overstretched at three. There might be time to pursue the salvage angle once we've stripped this place bare and laid our traps. But even then, I can't assume that anything will come of it."

She gave a heavy sigh, and leaned back against the edge of her desk. "Do you want to know what I'm most angry about?" she asked, addressing her words to the ceiling. "We have to keep this to ourselves. I never…" She trailed off, and her eyes clenched shut in palpable frustration. "I did _not_  want to be put in this position. To suppress critical information from… If people here… if they choose to follow my lead, then they should have the right to…"

Jean so seldom struggled with words. But these ones seemed to have hooks sunk into her guts, so that dragging them out of her mouth meant tearing pieces of herself away. Natasha could understand — intellectually, at least — how this situation was an anathema to someone who had built her leadership style on transparency.

She also had no doubt that Jean would eventually talk herself around to the correct conclusion.

Sure enough, Jean sucked in a sharp breath. Her eyes opened and her affect went flat. "The rest of the camp cannot entertain the slightest doubt as to whether they are going home," she said. "If we have desperation or despair, then we lose discipline, and more people will be killed."

Clint held up a finger. "It's not 'more people', it's 'people'. No one's dead yet."

"Yes. Of course. My point is that I need your agreement that this topic goes no further. Do I have it?"

"Who am I gonna tell? We're the only ones here."

Natasha gave a firm nod, intending to convey both agreement and approval. In that moment, she doubted that Jean would care. But perhaps in time.

The meeting broke up. Natasha and Clint postponed their discussion until they'd walked down to the coast.

Clint raised a hand to shade his eyes, and scanned the horizon. "So what do you think?" he asked.

The water was free of ships, just like it had been every time they'd looked. "She just decided that we're going to lose people," Natasha said.

"Uh-huh," Clint replied patiently. "Got that. Standing next to you when it happened. I'm saying, what do _you_ think?"

Natasha was thinking about the last two times the Avengers had faced down an army. Both times, they'd been victorious. Both times, one of their number had fallen in the process.

She flexed her hand. The scar tissue tugged, and there was an odd combination of tingling and numbness in her fingertips. "I think we can still work with what we've got," she said. "But if we run into any more setbacks… there could be trouble."

 

* * *

 

Each time Steve awoke, he had to take a moment to appreciate how much he didn't mind.

It was like a weight had lifted that he hadn't even realized he'd been carrying. He'd accomplished his mission. The setbacks he was facing were temporary, and had been undertaken by his own choice. He was grateful to be alive.

It helped that he understood what was happening to him this time. Any serious injury sent the serum into overdrive, trying to repair every piece of damage it could find. This including the threads, which redoubled their self-replication efforts in response. Since all of this activity was powered by _him_ , the net effect was to render him weak as a kitten. He knew, though, that he just had to wait for all the pieces to settle down and stop fighting each other. Strength and stamina would return.

Most of his fight with the Minotaurs was a blur, but it was punctuated by two moments of perfect and terrible clarity. The first had happened as he'd cut down the second Mino and spun to track the remaining two. He'd been one-handed, cut and bleeding, feeling the pain of his wounds and the burn of exhaustion… and between one step and the next, like the flip of a switch, the knowledge had arrived with simple certainty that he was about to die.

He'd killed the third Mino. Then the fourth had stabbed him in the chest (shock and pressure that stole his breath, his heart pounding in his ears, staring down at the blade where it was stuck into him), and suddenly he'd known one thing more: he didn't want to die. Not there; not like that. Not with so much left undone.

So he'd clung to the last Minotaur until he'd stabbed it in the throat, and then he'd clung to life, one breath at a time, waiting for his team to find him.

And they had. Sam had stabilized his injuries, and Tony had… well, Tony had yelled at him, but in a supportive way, and somehow the two of them had brought him back to safety.

Superficially, it seemed like Steve had come full circle. He was back in Kel's cabin, making daily trips to the infirmary, and working his way back up to walking a complete circuit of the camp. But the profound despair that had engulfed him the last time wasn't there anymore. He could work through this. He was going to be okay.

(Aaron was oddly ambivalent about his change in attitude. "Of course I'm glad that you're feeling better," he'd said, "but I think it's worth remembering that a long-term problem is almost never solved by a single event. There will probably be ups and downs after this. That's not a failure — just part of the process." Steve liked Aaron and respected his abilities, but he didn't want to think about the possibility of moving backward. He tried to put the conversation from his mind.)

In the hopes of not repeating some of his earlier mistakes, as soon as Steve was mobile, he made a point of joining the rest of the camp for meals. He knew pretty much everyone by sight, but he hadn't exactly made friends. Lucky for him, Sam was friends with everyone, and deftly slotted Steve into his social circles. Within a day of his discharge from the infirmary, Steve was caught up on all the local news.

The camp had shifted its focus from mining to lumber production. Felling and sawing crews took down each new tree from the perimeter and split off the branches from the main trunk. Then the carpenters processed the wood into planks and beams of standard sizes, as requested by the construction teams stationed at the beta site. The Oregon Six were the foremen for these various tasks: Matt, Mark, and one of the Kerrys ran construction at the beta site, while Mike, Katie and the other Kerry managed the work crews in camp.

Jean wanted people moved up to the beta site as quickly as food and shelter could be made available. The move was generally seen as a step up, and friendly debates over who should be transferred next were common. Steve hoped that Jean had taken boredom into account. The construction work was good for morale, but once it was was completed, she would have over a hundred people cooped up in a small encampment with nothing to do. Without some structure to their days, they weren't going to maintain discipline for long.

With ample supplies flowing in from the garrison, Alisha had expanded her weapons manufacturing operation considerably and drafted several more hands. She supervised the groups building landmines, plus a small team of blacksmiths. The camp had a large collection of swords acquired from the Minotaurs, each of which had to be reshaped into something sized for human use. Tony and Alisha had pioneered the process, and now Alisha was passing it on. (No single points of failure.) Recently, the blacksmith crew had begun to branch out into armor construction. Once Tony had recovered from his pneumonia, he rejoined Alisha's team and spent most of his time at the forge.

Tony was talking to him again. Not a lot, admittedly, and not about anything significant, but Steve felt as though a door had cracked open that had theretofore been firmly closed. They traded pleasantries at meals, and when the Avengers got together in the evening to catch up on news and progress, the two of them could converse like colleagues.

Steve hoped to build on that small piece of progress. But there was someone else in camp who deserved his attention first.

It was midmorning on a clear, sunny day. Steve left his appointment with Aaron and headed for the camp greenhouse, where he knew he would find Wanda.

She was sitting beside a row of the plants that supplied the infirmary with IV pods. Carefully, trying not to stress any of his still-healing injuries, he lowered himself to the ground beside her.

"Hi, Steve," she said. "Do you need me for something?"

"No, nothing like that," he replied. "It's been a while since we left camp, and I wanted to ask you how things have been going here."

"Just fine," she said, and snipped a pod from its stalk. "It's the rest of you who have the difficult jobs. The things I do here are easy. When they cut down a new tree, I make sure it lands safely. Sometimes I take walks around the perimeter to make sure the barrier is secure. That's about all. Oh — and a week ago, there was a pack of rats that tried to break into the kitchen." She paused in her pruning, and wrinkled her nose. "Well, they had more legs than rats do, but besides that, they looked like rats. I chased them away." She gave Steve a shrug and a rueful smile. "I wish I could be doing more to help."

"I know," Steve said. "I'm sorry. I know how boring it must be for you to be stuck here. But with all the dangers on this planet, we need our most powerful team member protecting the civilian population. That's you."

Wanda placed the pod in the canvas bag that was slung over her shoulder, then shifted over to the next plant in line. "Well, I've gotten quite good at protecting them from splinters," she said. "If that's the greatest danger here, I guess we're all doing our jobs pretty well."

"True," Steve said. "We might as well enjoy the boredom while we can. It might not last much longer."

He had never been in the greenhouse before, but he could see why Wanda liked it. There was a pleasant scent of new growth and freshly turned soil in the air. The building consisted of a wooden frame that supported walls and a ceiling made from a green-tinted transparent film. The space was bright and open.

It was also, the vast majority of the time, solitary.

"I've been meaning to ask," Steve began hesitantly. "Are you… I mean, are people here treating you okay?"

A shy smile appeared on Wanda's face. "Actually, that part has been really nice," she said. "It started with Mike — you know, from the Oregon Six? Right from the start, he would include me in things. Introduce me to his friends." She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, and Steve could have sworn that there was a bit of a blush on her cheeks. "And now some of them are my friends, too. There's this group of people, and they all treat me like I'm normal. I wasn't sure if that could ever happen again."

"I'm happy for you," Steve told her. "And I'm sorry that I've been so preoccupied with my own problems. I should have checked on you a lot sooner."

"Don't worry about that," Wanda said. "You've had such a difficult time here." She looked him up and down, and her head tilted curiously. "Though there's something… there's a stillness around you now. It hasn't been there in a while."

This time Steve was the one whose face went hot. "I guess I've come to terms with some things."

"Is there anything I can do?"

"Just what you've been doing," he said. "Keeping things under control here, and getting ready to fight when the time comes. We can't win this war without you."

It was, of course, going to take a lot more than one conversation for him to make up for the months he'd spent neglecting his responsibilities as team leader. But by the time he and Wanda left the greenhouse to go to lunch together, he felt like he'd made a solid start.

That just left Tony. The two of them spent several days cautiously circling each other, making polite conversation like distant acquaintances when their paths crossed. Steve knew enough not to try and force a deeper exchange. Tony would reach out when he was ready.

In the meantime, Steve worked on building his strength back. His morning walk improved to a morning jog. Under Aaron's supervision, his arm healed and the stab wounds faded.

One morning, when they'd been in camp for about a week, Steve stepped out of his cabin and found Tony lurking by the corner of the infirmary.

"Hey."

"Hi, Tony," Steve said, and gestured toward the perimeter. "Do you want to join me?"

Even though this was clearly what he'd had in mind, he still made a show of weighing his options. "Yeah, all right."

"Is this a strictly no-talking run?"

"Up to you."

Not the most promising beginning. Steve decided to keep his mouth shut for a while. The two of them fell into a light jog, side by side. Tony was still carrying an intermittent cough from his bout of pneumonia, and he ended up needing all his air for the run.

One lap was plenty for both of them. Once they'd returned to their starting point, they dropped to a slow walk, and started around the circle again.

"This won't be easy, you know," Tony said.

"Nothing has been yet."

"There are a lot of things we need to sort out. About the past."

"Yes," Steve said. "And about blame."

"About accountability."

"I couldn't agree more."

They both glared.

"You're right. This won't be easy."

Conversation lapsed for a time.

"I'm not even sure what 'fixing things' is supposed to look like," Tony said after a bit more walking. "Kel sometimes talks about… her people have this whole ritualized system of interpersonal debt and obligation. Probably because of the empath thing — if you have a group of empaths and two of them are fighting each other, pretty soon the whole group is fighting each other. Anyway. They have rules, and one of them is specificity. So I'm trying to…" He made a grasping gesture. "There needs to be a starting point. Something concrete. Maybe not one of the big things, just… I did this, you did that, manful apologies exchanged, shake hands, ten points to Gryffindor. Or whatever. A proof of concept."

Steve had a thought about that, actually. "There's something I've wanted to ask you for a long time," he said. "When we first met, you had something against me. What was it?"

Tony's brow furrowed. "When we… _what_? You're not seriously still holding the Helicarrier against me, are you? Trickster god, magical scepter of discord — any of that ring a bell?"

"No, it started earlier than that. You went out of your way to be antagonistic right from the beginning."

Tony looked away, and Steve knew that he'd scored a hit.

"All right, but after that… I thought saving the world together was a clear enough sign that I was over it. I mean, I built you a tower! I thought maybe the team would…" He sighed and swiped his hand through the air dismissively. "But you never trusted me."

Steve froze in place. "That's not true, Tony."

"Of course it is," Tony said, reeling around to face him. "Know how I know? Because when the whole Barnes thing kicked off, you jumped right to recruiting your own army rather than taking ten seconds to tell me what the hell was going on!"

"You weren't listening!"

" _You_ weren't talking!"

"Would it have made a difference?" Steve demanded. "You were so convinced that what you were doing was right, never mind what anyone else thought, never mind the obvious dangers—"

"What, and _you_ were the guy who was open to opposing points of view?"

"I was the guy who was trying to save innocent lives, and trying _not_ to knuckle under to a man who wants every enhanced to be either under his personal control or in a secret prison! And by the way, I wasn't the only one who showed up to that airport with an army. You want to talk about trust? You were ready to lock me up rather than consider the possibility that I had good reasons for what I was doing!" It had _hurt_ that day, because he _had_ trusted Tony as a teammate. "Even when we disagreed before, I still believed that you wanted what was best for the team," Steve said. "But when you turned against us—"

"You know what, let's lay down some ground rules," Tony interjected sharply. "Rule one: my actions have motives other than villainy."

"Rule two," Steve shot back, "my judgment isn't so _askew_ that anything involving Bucky makes me automatically wrong."

"Rule three: no sarcastically quoting each other!"

"Are you sure you can stick to that? I thought sarcasm was your primary language."

"Jesus _Christ_ , Rogers—" Tony's mouth snapped shut and he looked away. "You know, maybe this wasn't a good starting point."

"Maybe you're right."

For want of a better idea, they started walking again.

Steve knew that he was treading dangerous ground, but on this one point, at least, he was certain that he'd been right. "At Leipzig, was there anything I could have said that would have made you believe that Bucky was being controlled?"

Tony was silent for several paces. "I don't know," he eventually said. "I can't… judge it accurately anymore. Not after Siberia."

That was a more honest answer than Steve had been expecting, and he nodded in acknowledgment. "I'm sorry I had to stop you like that," he said, as gently as he could manage. "I understand why you reacted that way, but it wasn't his choice and I couldn't let you—"

"Rule four," Tony said tightly. "Stop trying to sell me on Barnes. I'm sure if our situations were reversed, the great Captain America could go from zero to forgiveness in one point five seconds flat, but—"

"Rule five," Steve retorted. "Captain America is a propaganda character. I'm _Steve_."

Another break. Another stretch of silent walking.

"No, you couldn't let me," Tony said quietly. "And I… regret trying to take revenge on the murder weapon instead of the murderer."

Steve drew in a quick breath and tried not to stare. It was a massive concession. He had just one of comparable magnitude in his arsenal. "It was my fault you were blindsided," he said. "I'm so sorry I didn't—"

But Tony held up one hand quickly. "Can we… not do that one right now? Please?" He shot Steve a quick, self-deprecating sort of grin, although his eyes were suspiciously damp. "Not refusing the sentiment, just… hitting my saturation point. Okay?"

"Okay," Steve responded. "Maybe we should take a break from it. If that's okay with you."

"Yeah. Sounds good."

He felt simultaneously wrung out like a dishrag and light as a feather, even if that made no sense at all. A few months ago — maybe even a few days ago — that conversation wouldn't have been possible. No chance. Now… hope was beginning to replace despair. They were finding their way back.

Then Tony added, "Rule six: Howard is off-limits."

Steve frowned, and quickly reviewed everything that had been said. Admittedly, anything involving Bucky implicitly referenced… but Tony hadn't said _my parents_ , he'd said _Howard_.

Cautiously, Steve said, "I didn't bring him up, did I?"

"No," Tony said tersely. "Just… rule."

Steve nodded his agreement. He didn't have to understand yet. All that mattered was that they were making progress.

The only livestock on-site at the moment were the three horses. They were hitched to long lines that allowed them to roam across the southeastern quarter of the camp and some distance into the forest. At this hour of the morning, they were usually grazing just beyond the treeline, or else sunning their wings on the lawn. Steve and Tony had stepped over their hitching lines on their earlier pass around the camp, and they were coming up on that same spot again.

This time, George the horse came trotting out of the forest to meet them, and began to aggressively renew acquaintances with Tony.

"George, you glittery pest, could I possibly get two seconds to myself?" Tony gave the animal an affectionate pat on the neck. "And we've discussed the ear-licking thing. You and I simply don't have that kind of relationship."

George, undaunted, slid his nose down to Tony's shoulder and tried to burrow beneath his collar. There was an urgency to it that reminded Steve of how he'd reacted to that first giant spider.

"Could he be picking up on a threat?"

"Like what?" Tony asked. "We just blew up the last enemy camp on this side of the sea, and we're protected from everything else by the barrier."

"I know, but when does this planet ever run out of imagination?"

Steve's theory gained a lot more traction when the other two horses came barrelling past. They ignored the humans altogether and retreated from the forest as far as their tethers would allow.

A moment later, he found out why.

Sam had told him about the bizarre, mobile plants with poisoned vines and an eyeball on a stalk. One had been kept in a greenhouse at the research outpost, and another had slinked by Sam and Tony's campsite after the attack.

The plant Steve was looking at now had to be the same species. Only there wasn't just one — there were hundreds. The ground seethed with them. They were advancing from the south in a massive swarm.

Steve snatched at Tony's arm, and together they backpedalled fast. The stalks slithered forward slowly, relentlessly, and there seemed to be no end of them in sight.

"Tony," Steve said, "can you reinvent the flamethrower in the next thirty seconds?"

"I can give it a good try."

He dashed off, bellowing for Alisha.

People came running in response to the commotion: Mike and his felling team from the north, Katie and some of her woodworkers, the people who'd been working in the kitchen and laundry. They appeared in ones and twos and small groups, slowed to a halt as they came in sight of the wave of advancing eyeballs, and began to backtrack.

Steve paused at the horses' enclosure long enough to unhitch them. They needed no encouragement to take off to the north, and he followed in their wake. Sam and Wanda were making their way to the front of the crowd, flanking Tavleen, and Steve angled to meet them.

Tavleen blanched and raised her hand to her mouth. "Oh my _God_ ," she gasped. "What _are_ they? How did they get here? This place was supposed to be safe!"

"Sam, weapons, right now," Steve said, and he took off. "Wanda, do what you can to slow them down."

"Right."

He turned to Tavleen. "Do you have an evacuation plan?"

"No! We weren't supposed to be attacked here!"

"Okay." Steve looked past her at the crowd. Panic was growing. They needed a concrete course of action. "Get everyone down into the mine, then take them out the emergency tunnel. It's still open, right?"

"Yes, I think so," Tavleen said, "but where do we go after that?"

"Hopefully you won't need to go anywhere. You just need to get to a safe distance until we've cleared them out."

From behind him, there was a sudden _whoosh_ and a red glow. Tavleen's eyes went wide. Steve glanced over his shoulder and saw a barrier of energy, twenty feet high, now spanning the width of the camp. Wanda stood before it with her arms raised.

He turned back to Tavleen. "Everyone else will take their cues from you. Keep them calm. Stay together. We'll come and get you as soon as it's done."

Steve could see the effort that it took to still herself, but she managed it. She swallowed hard, gave him a nod, and stepped past him to begin directing the crowd.

Sam returned with sword and spear. "I hope you have a better plan than squashing them one by one," he said, and handed over Steve's weapon.

"Working on it."

They caught up with Wanda.

"The line extends far into the trees," she said, tension heavy in her voice at the effort of maintaining the shield. "It's almost as wide as the camp."

"Can you encircle them?"

"Not with so many under cover. If you want to get them all, you need to draw them out."

The mass of eyestalks reached the shield and stopped. A couple individuals at different points along the front line shuffled forward, raised their tendrils, and tested the obstacle before them. Each one flashed crimson and collapsed into ashes.

The rest let out terrible shrieks, overlapping. They retreated into angry, squirming bunches, hazy behind the wall of red. Then one bunch coiled in on itself and fired an eyestalk clear over the barrier.

Wanda gestured sharply, and a fireball launched from her fingers and fried it midair. But part of her shield buckled in response, and another bunch surged forward.

"I can't do both things!" Wanda warned.

Steve and Sam raced to intercept the group that had broken through.

"At least this is drawing them out!" Sam called as he slashed his way through a bundle of eyestalks.

"Fall back!" Steve ordered. "Drop the wall, let them see us."

He didn't understand how a plant could shriek, but each one did as he cut it to pieces, and its cries were echoed by its fellows. They were picking up the pace, and Steve's team hastily retreated before them.

As he'd hoped, the eyeballs could pinpoint their enemies. Rather than spreading out to blanket the camp, the mass was beginning to converge on the three of them. The crowd became denser as more and more emerged from the trees. A few more daring eyestalks darted forward, only to meet Steve and Sam's blades or Wanda's energy blasts.

The team retreated and the plants advanced. Steve risked a glance at the treeline. He could see bare grass behind the swarm of vines.

"Could you envelop them now?" he asked Wanda.

"I think so, but if they jump in all directions—"

"I know. Hold for my signal."

Then, with not a second to spare, Tony and Alisha came running. They each carried a metal bucket filled with some kind of powder.

Alisha staggered to a halt, and her jaw dropped. "Dear _God_. Tony, are you sure—"

"Li, you got this, okay?" Tony said. "Sam, cover her. Wanda, we need, in this order, a strong prevailing wind away from us, an _extremely_ good fire wall, and a spark. Can you do it?"

"You want to spread the dust over them?"

"That's the idea."

She looked to Steve, who gave her a firm nod.

Wanda's hands came up again, and her eyes narrowed. A sudden wind tugged at Steve's clothes and pressed into his back.

Tony and Alisha spread out, and Steve and Sam covered them. " _Now_!" Tony shouted, and they both swung their buckets in a wide arc.

Gusts of wind picked up the powder and blew it outward across the vines. Wanda's shield sprang up again, this time in a huge circle that contained the army. At the center of the circle, there was a little spark—

And a massive fire.

The flames were yellow-green, like the self-destruct had been. They filled the circle and leapt into the sky with a blast of heat and a terrible roar. Just before Steve's eyes slammed shut, he had an image of Wanda framed against the fire, her arms thrown wide as she struggled to contain the explosion with every muscle in her body and every piece of willpower she could muster.

Then the fire burnt itself out and was gone. Everything outside the shield was untouched. Wanda let it drop, revealing the circle of scorched earth within. The enemy was ash.

"Not bad," Steve said to Tony.

"Took a little longer than thirty seconds."

"Still."

"Yeah."

Wanda wobbled in place and slowly sank to the ground, and the rest of the team converged on her.

Alisha dropped to the ground beside her and picked up her hand. "That was _amazing_ ," she said.

"Agreed," Tony said after a moment's hesitation. "Nice job."

Wanda blinked at them hazily a few times, until she finally focused on Steve. "I did better that time. Didn't I?"

She had to be thinking of Lagos, and the other fire that she hadn't been able to contain. "You did great," he said. "Are you hurt?"

"No, I don't think so. But I think I'll go back to boring things for a few days, if that's all right."

"Here," Alisha said, and guided Wanda's arm around her shoulder. "Let's get you somewhere you can lie down, okay?" She looked up at Steve. "You're not expecting any more excitement today, are you?"

"No, I think we're safe now," he said. "Will you have Aaron—"

"Yeah, of course."

The two of them carefully got to their feet, and made their way toward the barracks.

Sam asked, "So — anyone got an explanation for the sudden plant eyeball army?"

"Actually, I'm pretty sure it was your fault," Tony said.

"Say again?"

"The poison on those things induced a fever so you couldn't stop sweating, and it contained an anticoagulant so you couldn't stop bleeding. My guess is it also tagged you with a scent marker. You left a trail, and they built up their forces and followed."

Sam's face twisted up in disgust. "I hate this planet."

"We need to check the barrier for damage," Tony continued. "We've seen their jumping trick, but they could have also pushed through by sheer force of numbers."

"More than that, we need to settle some nerves around here," said Sam. "The camp wasn't supposed to come under attack. Now that it has, there's going to be panic unless we do some serious damage control."

Steve nodded. "You're right. I know Jean expects us back, but…"

"But we can't leave yet. After we check out the barrier, we should run these folks through some evacuation drills."

"And come up with a contingency plan a little more solid than 'run north'," Tony added.

"Agreed," said Steve. "We'll send Jean a 'be on the alert' flare. Hopefully that'll let her know to expect some additional delays. I'll write up a report to send with the next convoy, and in the meantime, we'll just have to trust that the four of them can handle the supply ship."

It wasn't a great solution, but it was the only one they had. Steve and Jean had had their differences, but he was certain that she would agree with him here: their first responsibility was to the civilians.

 


	42. Chapter 42

"Rule twenty-one: if we're at breakfast and you get up to get a second cup of coffee, you also have to bring me one, even if I'm not done my first cup of coffee."

"I used rule twenty-one last night. That's rule twenty-two, and it's _ridiculous_ , Tony."

"Rule twenty-two: don't argue with my math."

"Rule twenty- _four_ : don't abuse the rule system to make me bring you coffee!"

Sam and Wanda watched this procession make its cantankerous way past their table toward the kitchen.

"I guess it's better than when they were punching each other," Wanda said. "Isn't it?"

Sam just lifted up his eyes and thanked God that no one was trying to turn this into _his_ problem.

 

* * *

 

Okay, so maybe it got a little out of hand. _Whatever_. The premise was sound.

And Steve goddamned _owed_ him those coffees.

 

* * *

 

These things followed a certain pattern. Having been through it before, Steve was no longer taken by surprise. He and Tony got the rules to stop proliferating, and even managed to repeal a few of the more… specific entries. Then, overnight, Tony switched gears completely and started acting like the entire exchange had never happened. Steve was exiled back to superficial pleasantries and careful distance.

That was fine. If Tony needed some space, Steve could give it to him.

In the meantime, there was plenty of work to do around the camp. An expedition to the southern edge of the boundary showed that the eyestalk plants had done some damage when they'd pushed through. The team made repairs that afternoon, and spent the next day making a complete inspection of the perimeter.

The following morning, Steve sat down with Sam and Wanda and discussed reinstituting a training schedule, both for their own sakes and to reassure the rest of the camp that preparations for the war continued. Wanda had taken only a passing interest in weapons training, for obvious reasons, but she agreed to join in while the rest of the team was off-site.

Tony, conspicuously, did not attend. Though this risked violating rule zero (don't push), Steve decided to track him down and ask him about it.

The forge was a small building located by the path to the mine. Steve could hear the ringing of hammer on metal before he even opened the door, which told him that he'd guessed right. Sure enough, Tony was inside, and so was Alisha. She stood at the anvil, working an oblong, curved length of metal with hammer and tongs while Tony supervised.

Tony's eyes flicked in Steve's direction when he walked in, then returned to Alisha's work. "Exactly, just like that," he said. "Steady rhythm, even power. Don't let it get too thin at the edges."

"I still can't figure out how I went from chemical engineering to this," she said, and quenched her handiwork in the bucket beside her. Steam hissed and billowed. "I used to understand my job. My job, and at _least_ seventy percent of the rest of my life all made reasonable levels of sense to me. Do you remember what that was like?"

"Nope," Tony said. He took the tongs from her, and set the curved piece on a nearby shelf. "Steve, what brings you here? Does your horse need shoeing?"

"I was just curious why you didn't come to the meeting this morning," Steve said.

Alisha looked quickly between them. "Do you want me to be somewhere else?"

"No, you're fine," Tony said. "This won't take long." He crossed his arms and faced Steve, leaning back against the shelves. "Meeting this morning. It was about training schedules, right? Nothing to do with me."

Why it was always two steps forward and one step back… Steve tamped down his exasperation until it could pass for mild concern, and replied, "Of course it has to do with you. You're a part of the team, and I think it's fair to say that we all need more weapons practice. Why wouldn't you want to work with us?"

Tony gestured around the room. "I realize I make all this look easy, but the fact of the matter is I have more than enough work of my own, and this is not a good time to pick up a new hobby."

"I'm not asking you to join my knitting circle," Steve said. "We'll be going into combat soon. If the last mission proved anything, it's that we need to understand how to work with each other. The only way to get there is to practice."

"Granted."

"So?"

"No."

Alisha redoubled her already implausible level of interest in the head of her hammer.

Steve closed his eyes for a second and reminded himself of rule one. "Okay. Clearly something's going on here that I don't understand. Can you at least tell me what it is? Because I know you used to train with Kel and Jean, and I know you can handle a sword, so—"

" _You were going to kill me_."

The shock of the accusation was just as strong as it had been the first time. Steve tightened his jaw against the cold wash of shame and regret. "Tony," he said hoarsely, "I was _not_ going to kill you. I promise you, I never—"

"Yeah, I _know_ ," Tony snapped. "But that's what it _felt_ like. And if I see you squaring off against me again, that's how the parts of my adrenal system that are prone to overreaction are going to take it." He broke eye contact and turned to fiddle with some of the tools that sat on the shelf. "And, uh, it'll be all downhill from there. Maybe once Kel's back, we can… but for now, no."

A bitter reminder — and maybe he'd needed one — of just how far they still had to go. There was nothing else Steve could do but say, "I'm sorry."

Tony gave a curt nod. "But hey, if you ever get that knitting circle up and running…"

"You'll be my first call."

 

* * *

 

To the shock of exactly no one, Jean's stress level went up several notches after they all saw the flare.

The sharp _crack_ of the charge brought them running, then four sets of eyes turned skyward as the brilliant blue light streaked overhead and finally buried itself in the water.

Natasha started with the obvious. "Looks like our reinforcements will be late."

"I hate not knowing what happened," Jean said, staring at the coast like the little rocket was going to wash up on shore and explain itself.

"I wish we could encode more messages than 'problem' and 'massive fucking problem'," said Clint. "But blue means they're on top of it, and we have to take them at their word."

"I'm sure Steve's got things under control," Natasha added. "How many more fires could he possibly set?"

Jean wasn't seeing the humor.

Kel's best guess had the supply ship arriving in less than a week. Her empathic sense would pick up the crew while they were still quite a distance from shore, which saved the team from having to maintain a twenty-four-hour watch. Though they'd tossed around some more elaborate ideas, the plan they'd chosen in the end was quite simple: when the ship showed up, Clint and Jean would grab their bows and explosive-rigged arrows, and blow holes in it until it sank. The water-socks would handle the rest.

There was a level of stress involved in maintaining battle readiness over a long stretch of waiting. Kel handled it with ease. Jean, at times, was more visibly on edge. Her standard response was to hole up in her office and continue to work on what Natasha suspected were day-by-day (if not hour-by-hour) projections for the next five months. Natasha understood the impulse — one of Jean's vices was generating the illusion of control through excessive forethought — but those kinds of mental feedback loops weren't actually helpful. More than once, she'd headed for Jean's office to drag her away from her papers, only to run into Kel on the exact same mission. They'd taken to alternating their interruptions.

Besides the chores required to maintain the garrison, the team's main sources of diversion were their daily training sessions. Under Clint's supervision, Jean was becoming a rather good shot with her bow. The two of them had set up a firing range behind the barn, and they spent at least an hour there each afternoon. Their supply of arrows was limited only by time, not materiel, and whittling more of them was a standard evening pastime. The collection they'd amassed so far looked impressive while sitting on the floor of the armory. It would probably become less so when matched against an army.

The four of them also practiced with swords and spears, or suitable facsimiles. Kel, by the standards of her culture, had seniority and therefore considered herself in charge of combat skills. Natasha would have pushed back on that idea long ago if Kel weren't exactly as exquisitely trained as she believed herself to be.

She was _not_ unbeatable, mind. Working together, Natasha, Clint and Jean could push her to her limit. Sometimes one of them even landed a lucky blow that, if they'd been fighting with edged weapons rather than staffs and batons, would have been debilitating. She was, however, irritatingly versatile. She had no preferred style, other than to perceive what her opponent was about to do and counter it with brutal efficiency. Sparring with her was… a unique experience. Good for the fast-twitch muscle fibers; rough on the ego.

And absolutely necessary. Much as Natasha was loath to admit it, the burn and subsequent recovery had put a dent in her overall fitness level, and that had to be rectified. The hand was not at one hundred percent — wouldn't be, apparently for the foreseeable future — and she needed to understand exactly what it could and could not do.

Plus, she was intrigued by Kel's history. She wanted to view it from every angle, like a diamond. Training sessions provided convenient opportunities for conversation.

Kel was always game for hitting someone with a stick. While Clint and Jean were behind the barn, she and Natasha met in the empty field by the shore. They'd perfected their routine over the last couple weeks: they fought with batons, Kel's one to Natasha's two, and Kel was blindfolded. (The latter was supposed to help even the odds between them, though its efficacy thus far had been dubious at best.)

This particular afternoon began like every other. Kel picked up her baton, Natasha affixed the blindfold, and they squared off.

"Tell me more about your training." It was the question Natasha had asked multiple times, only now Kel was the one asking her.

She had many options, of course: to be evasive, vague, noncommittal; to lie; to refuse to answer. While considering, she launched an attack that Kel fended off easily. ( _Left arm: speed and power diminished but adequate_.) She still had pins and needles in her fingertips, but her grip was solid.

The instinct, always, was to deflect. But she saw a certain appeal in the idea of talking to someone whom she couldn't shock.

"It was comparable to yours in certain ways," she said. "I started at the same age. The physical intensity was about the same." Another clash. The batons clacked briskly. Each impact rang through her palm with just a little more of a sting than it should have. "But there were some differences. We were isolated from our families. The penalties for failure or disobedience were a lot steeper. And, now and then, we were made to kill each other."

Kel relieved her of one baton, then the other, then paused politely to let Natasha rearm. Her head tilted a little.

"Yes, I know of methods like this," she said. "It was more common among j'Brenithi generations ago. To use others of the same age to train to kill. Many children died before they had their names. Today, we think of this as a waste." For all the concern in her voice, she might as well have been talking about composting techniques. It was strangely relaxing.

Natasha worked her way around to Kel's right with silent steps. Kel remained in place, facing the wrong direction. Another half-step—

Kel dodged almost before Natasha's lunge began. She caught Natasha's baton on hers and casually deflected it, then went on the offensive.

"I understand the idea," she continued even as she hammered at Natasha's guard. "If you can begin with a large number, but only need to finish with a few, then you let the weak destroy each other and isolate the strongest." She feinted right and cut to the left, targeting Natasha's weaker arm. Natasha retreated but held her own. "But a problem they found was that it created strong individuals, not an army."

"Whereas you and your cohort were formed into an army."

"Yes."

Kel stripped one of the batons from her grip and elbowed her, somewhat apologetically, in the face.

"I said before that I was always the smallest and weakest," she said, stepping back again. "Most of the children my age progressed faster, moved on. But some stayed with me. Helped me when I needed it. We all helped each other, eventually. Took our names together. Later, we served together. Many different worlds. Our names are spoken. We would not have done as well, I think, if I thought one of them could kill me."

Natasha circled the batons in her hands. She was exploring the theory that excess motion could confuse Kel's perception.

"For one of us, having our name spoken would have been a catastrophic failure," she said.

"Yes. The 'spy' job. I begin to understand. I think."

She didn't, really. She had a mental block around the idea of using someone else's name. It was as if Natasha had claimed to walk to work on someone else's feet. But it was nice of her to make the attempt.

Natasha put power behind her next cut — or tried to. Kel sensed it coming and struck first, and suddenly there was no room for anything but the duel. The duet. Combat instincts unleashed against a worthy adversary. Nothing held back.

They teetered on the edge of perfect balance until Kel landed a numbing blow to her forearm. New skin stung and her grip broke. ( _Adjust. Adapt_.) She retreated before Kel's attack, sidestepping a small dip in the ground. Kel couldn't see it. Her foot caught the edge and her ankle turned — just a little, just for a second, but it was enough to break the stalemate. Natasha broke her grip on the baton, twisted, trapped—

Kel threw her weight hard to the side, breaking Natasha's hold and spraining her own wrist in the process. She shifted back, drove her elbow in. Block and counterstrike, grappling, legs tangling, looking for leverage. Natasha put all her power into body blows and felt ribs crack beneath her fists. Kel was heavier and a little stronger but Natasha had more reach. She broke the clinch and—

Sharp jab to her throat and the world blinked.

When she came back, she was facedown with one hand pinned and Kel's forearm about to close off her carotid.

Natasha slapped the ground, and the pressure vanished. Kel rolled off of her, and stripped away the blindfold.

"Is it enough?" she asked.

Natasha massaged her throat. She was going to have bruises. That was fine; she'd earned them. She'd lasted longer that time than she had all week.

"Yeah," she said. "Nice moves."

Kel nodded acknowledgement and sat down beside her. "I tell Jean about things I did when I was a child. Things that were normal for me. And she reacts badly. I think this also happens to you, sometimes."

Of course it did, and Natasha had quickly come to despise it. She could respect people who hated her for the things she'd done. But those who'd valiantly overcome their contempt and landed instead on pity…

(Granted, in the early days, a flat "Wow. That was fucked up" from Clint had done more for her perceptions of normalcy than hours of SHIELD-mandated counselling sessions. But he'd been the sole exception.)

"I usually lie," she said.

"Ah. Simpler."

"Exactly."

They sat in uncomplicated silence for a bit. Then Kel added, "There are things I was taught that are wrong. It was difficult to realize this. More difficult to find the lines between the wrong things and the things I still need. Did you find this, too?"

"The skills remain," Natasha said. "It's how we choose to use them. Or if we choose not to use them."

"Yes." She frowned pensively. "There's one thing… in combat, war leaders have the right to spend my life if it serves the goal. I still believe this. I try to tell Jean that I'll follow her orders, even if it means my life. But she hates it. Refuses to talk about it. I'm not sure if I'm wrong, or if she's the one who needs to see things differently."

"Jean came into this with the goal of getting everyone out alive," Natasha said. "She'll see anything less as a failure, regardless of the circumstances." Not that Jean was alone in that regard. "You're not wrong in principle, but you should still make a concerted effort not to die. It'll save us all problems in the long run."

They did more drills after that — collaborative rather than competitive, once the rush of that first match had burned out. Natasha's arm improved a bit more. Small steps.

So another day passed without incident. A few more rolled along in its wake.

On this side of the portal, Vision wasn't able to walk through walls. But he could stand silently beside one until someone turned a corner and nearly ran into him.

"Good morning," he said pleasantly in the face of Natasha's glare. "How are you?"

"Oh, I'm great," she said. "I assume you want to talk to everyone?"

"That would be the most efficient approach."

Kel had already picked up on their visitor, and intercepted Jean and Clint before they could head out to the grain fields. The group gathered in Jean's office.

"I thought you should all be aware that the supply ship is en route and should arrive by this evening," Vision announced. "It carries approximately fifty Mjentur troops and one Nyth."

Jean took a quiet breath. "At least the waiting will soon be over," she said. "I'm grateful that you were able to warn us. How are things at the settlement?"

"Quite interesting. I have located their shipyards. Their navy comprises some fifteen troop transports and a larger number of support ships of various models. They are of wood construction, as is the inbound supply ship, and should be straightforward to destroy."

"And you're able to stay safely out of sight?"

"Oh, yes. I have constructed a temporary residence underwater. It's quite secure."

"I see," Jean said, and nodded like this was all very reasonable. "Is there anything you need from us while you're here?"

"Thank you, no," Vision said. "Perhaps more urgently, is there anything I can do for you before my departure?"

"A quick trip to the camp, maybe?" Clint suggested. "We got a warning flare a few days ago, but we don't know what it means."

Information was an irresistible prize. Jean's eyes lit up. "Oh, that would be… but I don't want to wear you out before you have to go back."

"You needn't be concerned," Vision said. "I don't experience fatigue."

"Ah. Of course. In that case — yes, a report would be very much appreciated."

Vision departed. The round trip took him about four hours, and upon his return, he briefed them on the attack of the killer eyestalk plants.

(Natasha already had some concerns about Minotaur armies. She could have done without plant armies altogether. But so it went.)

"Goes to show that at least one thing managed to crawl away from the outpost after Steve torched it," Clint said. "Nat's right — there's gotta be a chance that a piece of portal-sniffing moss or whatever the hell survived, too."

"Yes," Jean said. "That much I'm willing to accept as a positive sign."

Once she'd gotten a few more assurances that Steve had everything under control back at camp, Jean thanked Vision for his help and sent him back to his surveillance. This time, instead of flying out across the surface of the water, he dived beneath it and vanished from sight.

"I'll stand watch awhile," Clint said.

Jean looked at him sharply. "It could be hours yet."

"Yeah. Don't worry about it. I'll stand watch awhile."

For a sniper like Clint, a few hours was nothing. Whereas if it were Jean on watch, she would — in her reserved, internal way — work herself into a state.

"Come on," Natasha said to Jean. "I think one of the southwest fields is ready for harvest. Let's see if we can get some work done."

They spent a sweaty couple of hours wrestling with farming equipment built for Minotaurs rather than humans, but at least it passed the time until Clint came jogging down the road.

"Ship's mast on the horizon," he announced. "Showtime."

A few minutes later, the team was gathered behind one of the residences. The transport ship, though still out of range of their bows, was close enough to be clearly seen even without the benefit of Clint's eyesight. It was a two-masted wooden sailing vessel, perhaps two hundred feet long. It was heading toward them at a steady clip, but there were no rowers and the sails were oddly slack. Natasha wondered if it was driven by some other mechanism not immediately visible.

"Last chance to try and take it intact," Clint said. It was something they'd discussed, but ultimately dismissed.

"What would I do with a ship that size?" Jean asked.

"Start calling yourself 'Captain'? Tell Steve you outrank him?"

She chuckled. "Tempting, but no. Let's just get rid of it."

Clint and Jean picked up their bows and respective collections of explosive-tipped arrows, while Kel and Natasha donned their swords. The team split into two: Kel went with Clint, while Natasha stayed with Jean. The groups each moved closer to shore, staying behind cover, until they'd taken up positions on opposite sides of the ship's inbound trajectory. The two archers had been practicing this for weeks, using arrows weighted with pebbles to simulate the explosive charges. They both knew exactly how close the ship needed to come before they could sink it.

The ship began to slow. Those aboard must have noticed the lack of dock, not to mention the wreckage from the Geckos' surprise attack. If the commander of the vessel had any sense at all, they would see the obvious ambush for what it was and turn around without attempting to land.

Sure enough, the ship was rapidly cutting its velocity. It would have come to a halt well short of the dock, had there been one. An appropriately cautious move.

But not quite cautious enough. Jean stepped out from around the corner of the vault, and Clint mirrored her from further down the beach. Together, they took a few quick steps to the shore, nocked, drew and fired.

Tony'd made quite a few upgrades to those first crude grenades. They were smaller now, and packed considerably more of a punch. Each arrowhead buried itself in the hull of the ship, just above the waterline, and each charge went off with a _bang_ and a brilliant flash.

Wood splinters exploded in all directions, leaving a gaping hole in the hull where Jean's shot had landed. The ship shuddered and began to list. On deck, Natasha could see Mjentur racing about in a panic. Some of them were probably scrambling for weapons. Jean and Clint each fired one more shot — direct hits again, both of them — and fled for cover.

They'd wondered if they would have to deal with lifeboats. As it turned out, there was no time. The ship went down fast. The water around it churned and frothed as the water-socks zeroed in on fresh meat. Natasha wondered if any of the soldiers would be lucky enough to drown.

The two teams regrouped.

"Careful," Kel said. "The Nyth is still alive. The socks don't touch it. It comes to shore outside the boundary."

"Any other survivors?" Natasha asked.

"Not for long."

Clint and Jean exchanged bows for spears. Then Kel took the lead, taking the team across the boundary and south along the coastline. After about ten minutes, she signalled a halt and drew her sword. Natasha followed suit, and the four of them spread out, taking cover just inside the treeline.

It wasn't long before Natasha could hear the scrambling noises. Then the hooked tail appeared from behind the rocks, prongs twitching in agitation. Inch by inch, the Nyth pulled itself out of the water, and paused to flick water from its bristles.

Then it stilled. Something in its body language told Natasha that it perceived them.

Kel apparently agreed with her. She stepped out from behind the tree, and the rest of the team followed. Jean and Clint moved to flanking positions, while Natasha stood ready to back Kel up.

Oddly, the Nyth neither attacked nor tried to flee. Kel snarled something in Mjeth, and it clicked and rattled back.

"Do you understand it?" Jean asked.

"Enough. It's young." The corner of her mouth twitched. "It begs for mercy. Says it will leave, not speak of this to anyone."

Jean didn't find this nearly amusing as Kel did. Natasha could see her struggling with her instincts. She was a protector and a consensus-builder. She wanted to show mercy.

Then she raised her spear high and lunged forward, and drove the point down into the creature's back.

"All right," she said, and yanked the spearpoint back out of the corpse. "We're ready for you. Come and get us."

 

* * *

 

When Pepper checked the time, she discovered that she'd slept almost three months of Tony's life away.

(Assuming, of course, that the things they thought they knew about the other side of the portal were actually correct. It was impossible to be sure.)

She hadn't wanted to sleep at all, but Maria had insisted on it, at considerable length and with increasing volume. It had reached the point where Pepper had wondered if Maria would throw her over one shoulder and haul her off to a bedroom… and the answer had followed promptly on the heels of the question: yes, absolutely she would.

So Pepper had retreated to one of the unused suites in the residence, and just lain down and closed her eyes for a minute… and now it was three months later.

She'd slept like the dead. If she'd dreamed, she couldn't remember. It was only upon waking that the thoughts and images that she'd carefully shut out the night before began to escape her control. Tony and the rest, captive and branded, trapped on another world and forced to work for alien slave drivers month after—

No.

( _God, how was he dealing with it, captivity_ again _, what were they doing to him this time, were the prisoners being beaten, starved, worked to death, could he already be—_ )

NO.

She couldn't. Perhaps it was cowardly of her, but she couldn't fixate on the other side of the portal. That part was out of her control. She had to remain clear-headed enough to do whatever needed to be done here.

After a quick stop to wash her face and make herself presentable, Pepper crossed from the residential building to the lab facilities. Last she'd heard, Jane and Rhodey had been on their way to Tony's workshop so that Jane could explore… whatever it was she hoped to do to help them control the final portal. Whether the two of them had taken a break overnight or pushed straight through, Pepper was guessing that the workshop was the right place to look for them now.

Her palm print unlocked the door. Once inside, she was quickly proven right.

"What are the readings now?" came Jane's voice.

Pepper rounded the corner in time to see Rhodey wheel his chair to the end of a line of holographic displays. He read off a list of numbers that meant nothing to her.

"Perfect!" Jane said. Her fingers danced over her own set of holographic readouts and schematics. "Okay, I think we're on the right track! Let's save this configuration, and run it on the final dataset."

Rhodey entered what Pepper assumed were the appropriate commands, then looked up and waved her over.

"Hey," he said. "You get some sleep?"

"A little," Pepper said. She clasped his shoulder, and he put his hand over hers.

"Good. You needed it."

"How are things here?"

"Great," said Rhodey, and nodded toward Jane where she was still focused on her displays. "It's like MIT all over again. There's this skinny little kid who's half the size and twice the speed of anyone else in the room, and I'm just along for the ride."

"That's not even true," Jane countered. "You were the one who noticed the distortion in the upper harmonic— oh!" Her head came up. "Hi, Pepper. I didn't hear you come in."

"I don't want to interrupt," Pepper said. "I just thought I'd see how things were going."

"No, this is perfect timing, wouldn't you say, Jim? We hit some snags along the way, but they're pretty much ironed out now. I really think it'll work."

"I'm glad to hear it." When nothing more was forthcoming, Pepper added, "You think _what_ will work?"

Jane blinked. "Didn't I explain that already?"

"Not to me."

"Oh. In that case, maybe we should have a meeting."

They found Maria in the lounge, sipping coffee and watching the news. "Anything interesting?" Rhodey asked her.

"Not as such," she said. "It's mostly damage control after our stunt last night. 'Best minds in the country', 'every effort possible', 'expecting no further interference from unsanctioned groups or individuals', and on and on and _on_." She glanced past Pepper to Jane and Rhodey. "Dare I hope for better luck here?"

"I think so," Jane replied. "I'd like to fill everybody in. Could you get Peter and Kiran on the phone? This will involve them, too."

They settled around the coffee table while Maria muted the news feed and got Peter on speakerphone.

"Good morning!" Peter chirped. "It's great to hear from you guys!"

"How's it going?" Maria asked him. "Any problems?"

"Oh no, everything's fine. We just left New Hampshire for Maine. I've never driven through this part of the country before — it's lovely! I wish we had more time to stop and explore the—"

"Actually, I was trying to find out if you've been discovered, arrested, and thrown into a secret prison yet."

"Oh," said Peter, sounding deflated. "No, nothing like that."

Pepper asked, "Do we know where the official chase team is?"

"Yeah, they've been sending Jane updates," Rhodey said. "Last we heard, they were hovering around Boston, trying not to be obvious and cause a panic."

"They sent me schematics for their instruments," Jane added. "As long as they're next to a major population center, their signal will be swamped for a few more hours at least. Also, there's no way Boston's the target. It's way too early."

Pepper nodded. "So what's the plan?"

"Well, we couldn't stop the final portal from opening even if we wanted to. The head of the task force research team keeps asking me about it in slightly different words, like he's going to trick me into saying something different." Jane rolled her eyes. "But the more I study it, the more certain I am: it can't be done. So we don't have to worry about our people being stranded. As long as they can find the portal from their side, they'll be fine. The problem is if the portal hits a populated area and we can't evacuate everyone in time. Anyone who gets taken tonight will be gone for good."

"Yeah, Jean went over that a _lot_ before she left," said Peter. "Losing people to the middle portals was bad, but it could still be fixed. But the last one? We're supposed to clear the site, whatever it takes."

"Well, I think I can do a little better than that," Jane said. "The signal that we're tracking is the portal's nose, basically. The probe that it sends in to sniff out its targets. It zeroes in on a lot of warm bodies close together, electronics, motion — a bunch of different criteria. I've isolated the signals that it searches for, and I think I can build a transmitter to mimic them, only stronger. If we get our timing and position right, we should be able to draw the portal to a location of our choosing. We direct it to an empty field or something, then all our people come back safely, and no one else gets lost."

There were murmurs of approval from the rest of the audience.

"What still needs to be done?" Pepper asked.

"First, I have to finish building the transmitters. Then we need to catch up to the portal, get ahead of it, find a good site, and start sending our signal _just_ before it can get a lock on its target. After that…" Jane spread her hands. "We all cross our fingers."

"We can certainly keep you updated on our location," Peter said. "There's, what, less than eleven hours to go? And it'll take you most of that time just to catch up to us."

"Not the way Hill drives," Rhodey said.

"The portal doesn't know what it wants to do yet — it's just kind of noodling around the coast right now. Honestly, Kiran and I have no idea where it's headed this time, besides north and east. If we keep going in this direction, pretty soon we're going to run out of country."

"Text me once you're on the move again," Maria said. "We'll head out as soon as Jane's ready."

"You got it."

"And watch your back. The task force will be on its way sooner or later, and you do not want to get on their radar."

"Absolutely," Peter said. "We're keeping an eye out, don't worry."

After he'd hung up, Rhodey said, "You all remember that we were told to stay out of the way, right? Chasing down the portal and deploying transmitters doesn't exactly fit the bill."

"You want to stay home, Rhodes?" Maria asked.

"Hell no," he retorted. "I plan to be right there when Tony gets back so I can give him a piece of my mind about putting us all through this again. I'm just saying, those kids in the car aren't the only ones who need to watch their backs."

"I'm working on security arrangements," she said. "I might not have SHIELD's resources anymore, but I'm pretty sure I can still get four people to Maine without tripping any alarms."

They all had their jobs, then. All but Pepper, who could do nothing but wait some more. "Is there anything you need from me?" she asked, already knowing the answer.

Maria shook her head. "From here on out, we should avoid using any Stark Industries assets. Could save you trouble later on. Don't worry about transit — I'll handle everything."

"I guess I should get back to the lab," Jane said. "It'll be another hour, two at the most. Then we should be ready."

"Yeah, I'm right behind you," said Rhodey.

He shifted in his seat and sent Maria a pointed look. She gave a faint smile, and followed Jane out the door.

Once they were alone, he asked, "How are you holding up?"

Pepper was grateful for the gesture, but she wasn't sure if introspection was helpful at that moment. "I seem to have nothing to do," she noted. "I suppose I could see about some breakfast."

"Hey," Rhodey said, and reached for her hand. "He'll be back tonight. This'll all be over."

She smiled. She had to. It was the only way to keep back the tears. "You said something like that to me once before. Do you remember? After Afghanistan, when you called to tell me he'd been found, and he was on his way home. 'It's all over,' you said. But it was never over. Something started back then that never stopped — not once in eight years. And we have no idea what they're going through now, or how bad—"

"I know. I _know_." He squeezed her fingers hard. "It's killing me too, believe me. But I absolutely believe that the team is looking out for each other. They'll get past all the garbage that happened here on Earth, and they will keep each other safe. Not a doubt in my mind."

Pepper squeezed back. It still wasn't much to hold onto, in comparison with everything stacked against them. But she had to hope that it was enough.

In eleven hours, they would all find out.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is late! Real life was particularly uncooperative last week. Thanks for sticking with me.


	43. Chapter 43

**137 days**

Clint shielded his eyes with both hands and stared out over the water. "No doubt about it. They're out there. It's a scout ship, a lot smaller than the transport. Keeping a _very_ cautious distance. I think we scared somebody."

"So," Jean said. "We've been discovered."

"Yup. Should we wave, do you think?"

Jean, correctly, ignored that and turned her attention away from the horizon. She looked calm and focused. Good signs, Natasha thought.

"We're on schedule," she said. "I expect that we'll hear from Vision in the next several days. In the meantime, I want to get Northeast Four boxed up and cleared out. Let's keep at it."

 

* * *

 

**130 days**

Natasha and Clint followed Kel back to Jean's office, where they found Vision waiting.

"The Nyth fleet has been destroyed," Vision announced once they'd all assembled. "I waited until their forces were on the verge of embarking. Those forces are now stranded."

"Excellent news," Jean said.

"And excellent timing," Natasha added. "We're expecting the next convoy in a few hours." When Jean looked at her curiously, she said, "Now that this place is secure from attack for the moment, I assume you want to spend some time back at the camp. Maybe have a chat with Steve."

Jean's lip twisted ruefully. "It will have to be done sooner or later."

"I have to go also," said Kel. "Aaron asked me to return to the camp so that he can take a trip to the beta site."

Natasha gave Clint a quick nod when he caught her eye, and he said, "Fine with us, as long as Vision sticks around to help with the heavy lifting while you're gone."

Jean turned back to Vision. "Can you give us a sense of the enemy numbers?"

"They had assembled some four hundred Mjentur and ten Nyth," Vision replied. "I did not observe any other species."

Those numbers didn't sound so bad. That was why they weren't realistic. Natasha said, "Now that we've established the amount of trouble we're capable of causing, it's safe to say that the next assault will be considerably larger."

"Agreed." Jean pushed back from her desk and steepled her fingers. "Vision, the next major piece of work is to survey the coast and set up minefields in regions where the enemy soldiers might try to land. I'm hoping that I can prevail upon you to spearhead that process."

"Yes, of course," Vision said. "I'm happy to extend our defensive perimeter as far as our resources permit."

"Thank you. We couldn't possibly pull this off without you."

Vision inclined his head graciously. "When the enemy army is mobile again, presumably they will be using the same style of ship. I could easily return to the settlement and repeat my attack. Alternatively, if you prefer, I could wait here and sink them as they approach."

"No." It was Kel who responded. "You get to do what you did once, no more. They know your abilities now. They won't begin their counterattack until they believe they can defeat you."

Clint scoffed. "They can believe whatever they want. Doesn't make it true."

Kel didn't come out and say _Oh, you poor simple humans_ , but the little sigh she gave conveyed the meaning just as well. She turned and left the room without another word. Curiosity piqued, Natasha followed, and the rest of the group was close behind her.

There were still a few crates of processed vibranium bars in the vault, awaiting shipment back to camp. Kel slipped inside the vault, and returned with one of the bars.

After a glance at her audience to make sure they were paying attention, she wound up and swung the bar like a baseball bat at the corner of the office building. The vibranium struck with a _clang_ and rebounded hard enough to almost take her off her feet, leaving a sizeable dent in the wood.

Next, she tossed the bar to the ground, and reached for a small pouch on the back of her belt. She dug her fingers in, and came back with a pinch of dark red powder.

Natasha suddenly found it very important to note that Vision was upwind of the demonstration in progress.

Kel opened her fingers and sprinkled the powder over the bar. "I think," she said, "you never really believed that anything on this planet could damage you."

She picked up the bar again, and took a second swing. This time, there was a dull _crunch_ , and the entire length of it crumbled like old cheese.

Clint scowled at the trail of debris that had once been the most valuable metal on Earth. "Did you have to kill the entire bar? I mined some of that stuff myself."

"How long have you been carrying that powder around?" Natasha asked.

"The whole time." Kel dusted off her hand on her trousers. "The metal can't be recovered. At least, not with the tools we have here. Which means, in a way, you're the most vulnerable of all of us," she said to Vision. "You're the only one we can't heal."

Whether Vision could be killed, given that at least part of his consciousness was bound up in the Infinity Stone on his brow, was an open question. But from a tactical point of view, damaging his body beyond repair amounted to the same thing.

"The point is well taken," he said.

"In any event," said Jean, "the next set of conflicts will require stealth, rather than firepower. Vision, I plan to use you primarily for long-range communication and reconnaissance as long as circumstances permit. We'll deal with battlefield conditions when they become unavoidable."

"As you wish," he replied. "Shall we examine the coastal maps?"

 

* * *

 

**125 days**

The next convoy from the garrison arrived with Kel and Jean attached.

Steve hurried out to meet them, with Sam at his heels. "Jean, I didn't expect to see you back here so soon," he said. "Anything wrong?"

Jean hopped down from the lead wagon after a quick word to Gabriela. "On the contrary," she said. "The fleet was about to launch, and Vision destroyed it. We're as safe right now as we're ever going to be." She glanced past him to Sam. "You both look well. I'm glad."

"Yeah, Aaron did his usual bang-up job," Sam replied. "And you're looking a lot less stabbed than when we left."

"We'd certainly be in a difficult position without empathic healers," said Jean, and smiled politely. "I'll catch up with both of you soon. Excuse me." Then she stepped past them and headed toward the dining area, where the rest of the camp was just beginning to gather.

Kel, meanwhile, climbed out of the last wagon in line and stretched out her back. "I could run the distance in two days," she said with a groan. "Ridiculous to sit and make it take five."

"That one's been nothing but complaints the whole ride," Gabriela said, though the glare she shot Kel was too exaggerated to be genuine.

"That one becomes too comfortable, doesn't push her team," Kel countered. "Needs to be transferred."

"That one needs to keep her alien nose out of human personnel assignments."

Spider-Man leaned in and confided to Steve, "The two of them have been doing that the whole way. _Referring_ to each other. I think where Kel comes from, it's kind of a joke? But I don't really get it."

Steve didn't either. "I suppose it only needs to make sense to them."

Unloading the wagons was traditionally deferred until after the convoy team had eaten and rested. Steve and Sam helped to unhitch and secure the oxen, then they all joined the rest of the camp for dinner.

Jean spent the entire dinner hour glad-handing her way through the population with a zeal that bordered on the aggressive. Steve told himself that it made sense for her to want to reestablish her presence after having been away for so long. Still, there was something about her demeanor that felt almost… territorial.

Kel, in spite of her aversion to human food, was present as well. She did some circulating of her own, then settled down next to Tony at the table he shared with Spider-Man, Alisha, and some of the weapons manufacturing crew. Making herself visible.

The two of them were gearing up for something big.

Once they'd all finished eating, Jean called for everyone's attention and sprang up onto the center picnic table, which was hastily cleared of plates.

"I never thought I'd miss this place," she said, and took a casual look around the camp. "As it happens, I was right." There were scattered chuckles and she grinned back, layering on the charm. "You've all done fantastic work under extraordinary circumstances, and I want you to know that the finish line is in sight. In one hundred twenty-five days, every one of us will step through a portal, leave this nightmare behind us, and go home.

"But there's more work to do before that happens. The scorpions know what we've done. They mustered their forces and prepared to launch an attack from across the sea. Except Vision was ready for them, and he destroyed their fleet. Until they can rebuild — until they can pick themselves up off the dirt and come to grips with what just hit them — this side of the continent belongs to us!"

The energy of the crowd was rising and Jean leaned into it, her voice and her sign growing more dynamic. "We took back our freedom! All of us, together! They thought they could enslave us, but we drove them out of this camp, we drove them out of their strongholds, we drove them all the way back across the sea! We bought ourselves the time we need. And now…" She paused. Took a deliberate breath. "Now it's time to leave this place behind. Those teams working weapons manufacture, and one section of maintenance staff — we have need of your services a little while longer. Everyone else — you've done all you can do, and now you're moving west.

"Mike, Kerry, Anne, your sections leave for the beta site tomorrow morning. Teams Two and Three will be your escort. I'm reassigning two wagons from the garrison route to yours, so you can take the rest of the lumber and most of the food rations with you. Combat teams, you'll bring all the wagons back, then the remaining three sections will depart in the second wave. I want this place down to a skeleton crew within two weeks. Section leaders, I'll have a few more details for you very shortly. If anyone else has questions, you know where to find me."

Quietly, Sam asked Steve, "Did you know this was coming?"

He shook his head. "News to me."

"Me, too. There's Boss-Lady for you, I guess."

Speaking of whom, Jean stepped down from her table and headed for theirs.

"Wanda," she said, and took a seat on the bench across from her. "I didn't want to announce this without running it by you first, but I'd like to send you west with the first wave and have you stay at the beta site for the next few weeks. You're our heavy lifter, and there's still a certain amount of construction to be done. Besides which, you're arguably the single most reassuring presence out of all of us, and I'd like the group to know that you're watching out for them, at least until they all get settled in."

Wanda blinked in surprise, and glanced at Steve for confirmation. He gave her a quick nod.

"Sure, that's fine with me," she replied. "As long as you think the rest of you will be safe on your own."

"For the moment, yes," Jean said. "Don't worry, I'll have Vision bring you frequent status reports. If we need you back here, you'll hear about it in plenty of time."

"Okay," she said. "Then I guess I'd better pack."

"Excellent. Thank you." And Jean was off again.

"Nice talking to you," Sam muttered to her retreating back.

"I'm pretty sure this is my fault," Steve said. "Before we left, Jean told me not to attack the outpost. I disobeyed orders, and now she's reminding me who's in charge."

"Do you not want me to go?" Wanda asked.

"No, it's fine," he said. "She's right: the new site will feel more secure to everyone if you're there."

Jean managed to be too busy to talk for the rest of the evening. She was rushing about, wrangling personnel and supplies, until long after sunset. Steve decided that the best thing to do was keep out of her way.

(Tony and Kel slipped off together shortly after dinner. That was good: they probably had a lot to talk about.)

The bustle of activity continued the next morning as wagons were loaded and a group forty strong assembled for departure. Wanda was among them, and so was Aaron.

That last move left Steve a little concerned. Aaron had responsibilities to the entire camp, yes, but he was also the only one who could fully repair Natasha's burns. If he went west, it would be that much harder to put the two of them together.

"I know," Aaron said when Steve asked him about it. "This is just a short visit. When the fighting starts, you'll need a medic and Kel will be too busy on the front lines. I promise I'll be back by then. No matter what Jean thinks."

Once the first wave had left, it was time for lunch. After that, the departure process was repeated on a smaller scale for Team One, who were still running landmines to the garrison and bringing supplies back.

It was midafternoon by the time the work wound down. When the final wagon was out of sight, Jean seemed to steel herself, then turned to Steve.

"Do you have a minute?" she asked.

They went to her office. It had remained Jean's office, untouched, for all the weeks that she'd been away. That was one symbol she hadn't had to arrange herself.

"If you wanted to send me a message about the chain of command," Steve said, "there were probably easier ways to do it than breaking up the camp."

Jean shut the door behind them. "The chain of command is only one of my concerns." She walked past him to her desk chair, but did not sit. "Your actions have complicated our defensive efforts and endangered our trip home."

Steve groped for context, but found nothing but bafflement. "Excuse me?"

"At the research outpost was a particular plant. A piece of Nyth technology. I never saw it myself, but Kel did. It is responsive, in some manner, to the presence of the portal. The Nyth used it to detect the landing sites and lay their traps for incoming abductees. That was how I had planned to find our way home. Only now it's been destroyed. If we didn't have Wanda here as a backup, we'd be stranded. For that matter, I don't know for certain that she has the sensitivity to pinpoint the portal before it closes. We may be dead already."

Her words struck like a steel bar across the knees. "What? Nyth tech— this is the first I'm hearing of anything like that! Why didn't you tell me?"

Icily, she replied, "I assumed that it was obvious."

Steve crossed his arms. "Well, I regret to inform you that your assessment was flawed."

"Yes. Apparently so, given that Natasha and Clint were as shocked as you." Jean took some slow, measured steps toward him. "I also assumed — again erroneously — that if I told you to leave the outpost alone, you would _leave it the hell alone_."

Steve's chin came up and he held her eyes. "That's the difference between a theoretical exercise and a war. A battlefield is fluid. Plans change. I made the best decision I could with the information I had — information that was incomplete because _you_ didn't share your plans!"

They stared each other down for a long beat.

"Yes, I know," Jean said, and looked away. "I told Tony once that breakdowns in communication track back to me. It's still true. The situation is my fault." She moved back to her original position behind her desk, and this time it felt like a retreat. "In my own meager defense, I would have explained the stakes more clearly if I had ever, even for one second, imagined that you would find a way to burn the facility to cinders. Whatever abilities you may have lost, Steve, your capacity to confound expectations remains unparallelled."

The words didn't sting quite so sharply as they would have a few weeks ago, but the reminder still shocked the breath out of him for a moment. "It's funny that you would put it like that," Steve said. Now he was the one who had to look away. "When we found out that the Geckos had beaten us, and we were trying to decide what to do, Tony told me that if we took the outpost intact, he might be able to find the cure for what they did to me. But I couldn't take the risk."

Steve looked up when Jean didn't respond, and found her gaping at him in shock.

"My God," she breathed. "Steve, I promise you, I had no idea. Tony never so much as hinted at the possibility."

"Yeah," he said. "There's a lot of that going around."

"I should never have…" She sank down into her chair. "I'm sorry. Profoundly inadequate, I realize."

"Hey." Steve crossed to stand beside her, and tentatively set a hand on her shoulder. "We all screwed up on this one. I should have sat down with you and walked through the entire campaign ages ago. But I was too…" He trailed off awkwardly for lack of an adequate word.

"You suffered a terrible trauma," Jean said, and shifted to look up at him. "Of course you needed time. No one could blame you for that." Her head tilted slightly. "Though, if I may say so, you seem more… at peace now than when last I saw you."

"Almost dying will do that." Steve tried out a grin. "Sometimes, anyway. It helps not waking up seventy years in the future."

She chuckled. "I imagine it does."

Steve stepped back again to take the opposite chair. "You and I got off to a rough start, but I think we've been working together pretty well these last few months. I'd hate to lose ground on that front."

"So would I," Jean replied. "But at the same time, we never officially settled the question."

She didn't have to explain which question she meant. "Like you said, the finish line is in sight," said Steve. "Maybe, before we go much further, we'll have to."

Jean nodded, and came to her feet. "Walk with me."

They walked right out of camp, in fact, pausing only to pick up two water canteens from the kitchen. Jean led him west, following the same road that the group of forty had taken that morning. She was silent and her pace was unhurried.

They must have been walking for a good half-hour when Jean abruptly turned left. Off the road, the terrain soon turned into a rapidly rising hill. The ground grew rocky, and both of them had to use their hands to pull themselves up the last few yards, until the ridge they'd climbed flattened out into a small plateau. Behind them, the rock continued to rise overhead. Ahead of them lay a steep drop back down into the forest.

Jean walked to the edge of the plateau, and Steve followed. They'd climbed high enough that the ravine was visible in the distance, cutting through the forest as far as the eye could see. To his right, the suspension bridge looked tiny. Beyond the ravine, the forest climbed higher into the foothills. Somewhere up there was the beta site. Humanity's final stronghold.

"How did you find this place?" Steve asked.

"Kel showed it to me… oh, it must be almost two years ago now," Jean said. "On those rare occasions when I can justify taking a few hours for myself, I like to come up here. For the perspective." She gave her usual understated smile, but it faded quickly. "I have to take Wanda off active duty. You do understand that, right? She's our last chance to get home now. As you're fond of telling me, battlefields are fluid. I can't wager everyone's lives against one lucky shot."

Steve studied her profile. "You didn't tell her any of this before you sent her west."

"No. The rest of the population can't suspect that anything has gone off-script. I need them to remain confident."

Resentment flared. "You should have talked to me first," he snapped. "Or at the _very_ least, you should have talked to Wanda. Are you even planning to bring her back from the beta site at all?"

"That depends," she replied, unabashed. "It will take two more convoys to finish clearing out the garrison. Once that's done, I'll leave Vision on the coast to finish setting up the minefields, and bring Clint and Natasha back to camp. That gives us enough personnel to send a salvage team to the outpost while still maintaining a secure presence here. If the plant survived, the problem is solved. If it didn't, that's when I'll talk to Wanda."

"I don't recall giving you the final say on where my team goes or what they're told."

"I'm not asking your permission."

"And I thought we came up here because the leadership question wasn't settled yet."

"Is there any version of this conversation where you concede?"

"Is there any version where _you_ do?"

She turned on her heel and strode away until she'd reached the rock face. "Steve, I…" She trailed off, and was silent for a long moment. "I'm not sure how to do this. We both think we're right. We both have responsibilities. All I know for certain is that our margin for victory keeps getting narrower and narrower, and if there's still a power struggle by the time the enemy lands, then…"

Steve closed his eyes for a moment and tried to center himself. The problem seemed impossible. But not so long ago, talking to Tony again had seemed impossible. Maybe it was time for him to find out if he'd learned anything.

"Can we back up a little?" he asked. "A lot, actually?"

Jean tilted her head curiously.

"This all started because you decided to save my life," he said. "I never thanked you for that. So I'm doing it now: you took a huge risk for me, and I'm grateful. Thank you."

Apparently on reflex, she replied, "You're welcome."

"I never thanked you," he continued, "because I spent a lot of time believing that you were wrong."

"Yes. You weren't particularly subtle about that."

"I know. I'm sorry. It wasn't about you. Without my strength…" He paused, groping for the right words. Hoping he had the courage to put it all into words. "Without Captain America, there wasn't a whole lot of _me_ to fall back on. It felt like you'd brought back… nothing. Everyone was expecting a person, and somehow you couldn't see that I was just a shadow."

Gently, Jean asked, "Do you still feel that way?"

"I'm not sure," he said. "But… at least I'm starting to imagine that it can get better. That this version of me is worth holding onto."

"I'm glad for you, of course," she said. "But Steve, why are you telling me this?"

He didn't exactly know. It was a line cast out into the darkness. Feeling his way blindly with each word, he said, "Because back on Earth, Tony and I… we both thought we were right. We stopped listening and dug in our heels, and we hurt a lot of people, including each other. It's been six months — sixteen for him — and we're still working our way back from it. I don't want to make that mistake again. So I'm trying to find another way."

She gave a thoughtful nod.

"Can I ask you something?" Steve said.

"Of course."

"You said that it was Natasha who proposed rescuing me, and starting all of this. What would you have done if she hadn't?"

Her shoulders jerked as if the question had been a physical blow, but she held his eyes. "I would have left you behind."

"I'm not sure if my team would have accepted that decision."

"Yes. I know."

She faced the truth squarely. Steve would have expected no less of her.

(They could all consider themselves damned lucky that that particular confrontation had never come to pass.)

"But she did propose it," Jean continued. "And when she did — when we started talking through it — I could sense that the balance was tipped in our direction. I can't always explain it, but I've learned to trust my instincts: we could keep the enemy off-balance, hold them back, thin their numbers… we could do it. I could _feel_ it.

"Admittedly, some of that was predicated on having Captain America in our ranks." She shot him an apologetic smile. "Your condition changed the calculation somewhat, but not so much that I lost confidence. Now, though…" She trailed off, and looked down at her feet. "I'm frightened. There are so many ways we could lose this. Especially if Wanda is out of the picture. But the people down there — the ones who never asked for this — they must get home. I owe them every last piece of instinct and intelligence, every scrap of strength I can bring to bear. My life, if it comes to that. All of our lives. We _have_  to send them home, no matter the cost. This is my responsibility, and I'm not sure how I dare trust anyone else more than I trust myself."

In the pause that followed, the entire universe seemed to hold its breath.

Then Jean said, "But if that's what—"

"No," Steve said. "Don't."

She stopped again.

There was a time to stand fast and let the world crash down on you because you were _right_ , and shattering beneath the blow was preferable to becoming complicit in an injustice.

There was a time. But maybe it wasn't _every_ time.

(How many of his and Tony's rules were just different ways of saying, _See me as a person, not an opposing force_?)

His every moment since waking up in the twenty-first century had been spent clinging to that _one last thing_. His life was gone, but he still had SHIELD ( _be the perfect agent, follow orders, defend your country_ ). Then SHIELD was gone ( _corrupted, poisoned, he'd destroyed it, he'd had to_ ), but he still had the team ( _never let yourself be used again_ ). Then the Avengers were gone ( _he'd torn them in half, he'd had to_ ), but he still had Bucky ( _a miracle, a piece of his old life, his real life, the last piece left_ ).

Except he didn't. Bucky needed to save himself. He couldn't be Steve's lifeline, too. Which left the team again, except…

_Grip tight to that one last thing because if you let go then_ …

Then what? What was left? Who was he, if he wasn't ninety pounds of defiance wrapped in government-issued muscles?

Steve had no idea.

Maybe he needed to find out.

The ground felt unsteady beneath his feet, like the ledge was about to buck him off into open air. He took a step toward Jean, slow and shaky.

"I've asked a lot of people to follow me into combat," he said. "I don't have much experience on the other side of it. But someone needs to have the final word, and that's you."

When Jean didn't speak, or move, or apparently breathe for quite some time, Steve added, "Unless you've changed your mind, in which case—"

" _No_ ," she yelped. "I haven't, I just…" She cast her hands wide. "I'm trying to work out what I did to deserve this."

"Twenty months of hard labor, for one thing," he said. "You passed every test this planet could throw at you. Whereas I'm pretty sure I failed a lot of mine."

"Steve, you didn't—"

He shook his head quickly. "No, it's okay. My point is that you've had this under control from the start, and I'm still rebuilding. It has to be you."

Jean finished closing the distance between them. "If I miss something… if you think I'm wrong—"

"Believe me, you'll know about it."

Her quick bark of laughter was tinged with relief. "Okay," Jean said, and extended her hand. "Let's get this done."

Steve grasped her hand and squeezed, and she squeezed back. "I'm with you, Boss-Lady."

 

* * *

 

**119 days**

Tony knew that he was talking too much, but he couldn't seem to help it. "The starting point for the design was your typical fifteenth, sixteenth century Western European plate armor," he said, flitting here and there (god, he was _flitting_ ) to adjust buckles that were already fine where they were. "I streamlined some things, of course. Tried to ease back on the weight and maximize mobility while still protecting vital organs, major blood vessels…" He knelt to tuck in a stray strap on the shin guard. "And don't even talk to me about the pig iron we started from. I pretty much had to reinvent the steel mill — no big deal, but I'm guessing if a scorpion were here, it would have something to say about all the environmental regulations I—"

"Tony," Jean said, "it's fantastic." She held up her hands to study the gauntlets. "I may have just gained some insight into the Iron Man experience."

Tony circled around behind her again. "Obviously, different circumstances call for different types of armor." The backpiece was fine. He tightened a strap a quarter-inch, then loosened it again. "This isn't the stealth version, this is the Battle of Helms Deep version. It might take you some time to get used to the feel of it. Try it out, let Kel whack you with a sword a bit, and let me know if the fit needs to be adjusted."

"I will," she said. "Thank you." Her expression sobered, and when she looked down, it wasn't to admire the steelwork. "This is really happening, isn't it."

"Well, you and Kel could always duck out your secret interdimensional back door."

"Are you still angry at me for that?"

"Furious. You still angry at me for burning the outpost?"

"Livid."

They grinned.

Jean took a few experimental steps across the forge. "I'm loath to pry into matters that aren't my business," she said, "but I need to ask, how are you and Steve doing?"

Oh. They were doing _that_ , now. "Fits and starts," Tony said, and started fiddling with a pair of tongs. "We made some progress. Then we backed off. I backed off. Don't want to rush things. How are _you_ and Steve doing?"

"He gave me command."

Tony waited for the punchline. But either Jean's comedic timing really sucked, or…

He looked up and found her waiting expectantly. "Are you sure you were talking to Steve Rogers?" he asked. "'Cuz there's Steve from Denver — skinny guy, early twenties, brown hair — and I'm pretty sure _he'd_ be cool with you leading the defense force. But Steve _Rogers_ doesn't yield to anyone about anything, let alone who gets to be the boss of him."

"Believe me, I was just as shocked," Jean said. "But we had a conversation, and by the end of it, he'd decided."

"Uh-huh. Did this conversation involve you bashing him over the head with a rock? Not judging."

"Tony."

She reversed course and walked back to him, moving more confidently now. "I'm not trying to pressure you one way or the other," she said. "I realize that your circumstances and mine are completely different. I only ask because there will come a point where I need to know whether I can put the two of you together on a battlefield."

Steve gave up command. There was a command, and Steve wasn't in it.

Yeah, this called for some serious rethinking.

In the meantime, Jean had asked a relevant question, and he owed her an answer.

"Don't worry," Tony said. "Before battlefields are in the offing, we'll get it together."

 

* * *

 

**118 days**

Steve followed Kel to the training field behind the shower building. There, he found Tony leaning against the wall, with three blunted practice swords at his feet.

_You were going to kill me_. The words still rang in his ears. Steve caught Tony's eyes and silently tried to convey that he understood what this gesture meant.

"You don't spar with each other," Kel said. "Not until both become comfortable. One works with me, the other watches, then gives… back talk?"

"Feedback," Tony said. "But truth be told, your version is probably more accurate."

"Feed—" she wrinkled her nose "—back, then. The purpose is to help each other. To _believe_ that you help each other. Not to find new ways to fight each other. Yes?"

"Yes, of course," Steve said.

"Uh-huh."

She crouched to pick up a sword. "Steve. You begin."

 

* * *

 

**105 days**

When Natasha returned to the labor camp, she found that labor had ceased. There was no felling team on the perimeter, no bustle of activity by the woodshop, no thrum of distant conversation as people gathered for dinner.

Spider-Man unhitched the team of oxen from the lead wagon and nudged them in the direction of their usual pasture. They knew the drill as well as he did, and needed no further prompting.

"This place is kind of creepy with no one in it," he said.

"We still have ten chemists and ten support personnel," Jean replied as she unhitched the next team in line. "We need to keep manufacturing explosives until the last possible moment. Gab, I'm going to keep you, Frank and Pavel here until it's time for the final evacuation, then you'll escort the last of the civilians to the beta site."

"I don't think any of us are going to complain about sleeping in a bed for more than one night in a row," Gabriela said. "The kid's right, though — this is a bit creepy."

"I find 'creepy' preferable to 'under attack'."

Steve, Sam and Tony had also shown up to meet the convoy. Steve and Sam were supervising the oxen on their unhurried way to shelter and grazing space. Tony, by contrast, was standing stock still with his arms crossed, staring at her.

"Romanoff."

"Stark." She narrowed her eyes. "Did I miss something?"

"Oh no, not you. You never miss a trick."

Jean deliberately stepped between them. "The next item on the agenda," she said firmly, "is a potential salvage mission to the research outpost. Let's discuss it over dinner."

Tony turned and strode off, picking up Spider-Man in his wake.

There was only one reason Natasha could think of for Tony to be that angry with her. Apparently they needed to have a talk about a certain bunker in New Jersey.

It was going to have to wait, however. It had been more than seven weeks since the guys had lit the outpost on fire. Any plants that were going to grow back had surely done so by now. There would be no time for botanical expeditions once the enemy made their next move; they had to get in, retrieve what they could, and get out as soon as possible.

"Steve, I'd like you to stay here and help me continue to coordinate minefield placements with Vision," Jean said once they'd all gathered for dinner. "Tony, you're our chief armorer and your priorities are obvious. And Peter, you're our best long-distance traveler aside from Vision. I'd like you here as well, in case we need to get a quick word to the beta site. Which leaves…"

"Some familiar faces," Sam concluded.

Natasha didn't put a lot of stock in signs or omens, but she was not displeased with the symmetry. The four of them — herself, Clint, Sam and Kel — had run that first op, which had committed them all to the war. Fitting that they should also run the last one before the battles began.

"Sounds good," Clint said, "but this time, let's have one less giant jaguar and one less chimpanzee sting."

"Agreed," said Natasha.

 

* * *

 

**104 days**

Even though Kel had left at daybreak with the salvage team, Steve still kept his daily appointment after breakfast at the training grounds. He guessed that Tony would either bring Jean along, or not show up at all.

As it happened, he was wrong. Tony was there in the usual spot, alone, with two swords instead of three. But he was also sitting down with his back to the wall and his knees drawn up in front of him. Not exactly in combat mode.

"Hey," he said to Steve.

"Hi, Tony."

"We've lost our chaperone. Obviously."

"I thought we might ask Jean to join us," Steve said. "But it's fine if you'd rather take a break until Kel gets back."

"Jean. Yeah. That's probably sensible. Um. I realize this is… ambush-adjacent, but I was wondering if we could…" He gestured back and forth between them. "I wanted to ask you something."

Steve took a seat of his own, several feet away. "Sure. What is it?"

"We know the part that'll be hardest for me to get past," Tony said. "But what about you? What are you still pissed at me for?"

"I'm not angry with you, Tony. It was never really about that."

He rolled his eyes. "Okay, that was some Captain America propaganda character bullshit right there. Come on, there's gotta be something still stuck in your craw."

It would have been one thing if Tony had still been taking potshots at Bucky, but they'd pretty much worked through that. Tony didn't hold Bucky personally accountable anymore, and Steve — per rule four — wasn't pushing for a greater degree of reconciliation. As for the rest…

They had a rule for this, too. If someone asked a question, it was because they wanted to hear the truth.

"I guess," Steve said carefully, "I was surprised at how quickly you gave up on the team. At least, that's what it seemed like. If there's a piece that's still bothering me, that's probably it."

Tony's jaw tightened. "Okay. I'm gonna invoke rule ten on that one for the moment."

Rule ten: responses could be deferred if emotions were running too high for productive discourse. Steve nodded.

"Then the other thing—" Tony glanced his way quickly. "You have time for another thing?"

"Go ahead."

"I'd like to hear it from your point of view. From that first meeting with Ross at the compound, then Bucharest, Germany, and… the last bit."

"What for?"

"Because—" He took a second. "Not to rehash the argument. Any of the arguments. I won't even talk. I just… want to understand how it played out for you."

Now that _was_ ambush-adjacent. Steve considered refusing, or at least taking some time to go over what he did and did not want to say.

But they'd been making progress over the last two weeks, and not just on fencing technique. Reaching the point where one could say, "You're doing that weird thing with your elbow again," and the other could make the correction without getting defensive… a tiny step, yes, but also a new one. The two of them had never had that kind of relationship before.

What Tony was asking for now was different, of course, but perhaps the common thread was the bit of goodwill they'd built up between them: _this is not an attack_.

"Before you got to the compound," Steve said, "I was talking to Wanda. She'd been watching another news report on Lagos…"

Tony did, in fact, remain silent through the entire story. Steve resisted the urge to re-argue his case, and stuck to the basic facts: times, locations, information received, actions taken. A mission report.

"…and that was when you pried open the door," he concluded. "Uh… I think the rest of it—"

"Yeah," Tony said shortly. "I was there." Then he grimaced, and added, "By which, of course, I meant 'thank you'."

"You're welcome," Steve replied. Tony looked exhausted, and Steve felt it, and neither of them had so much as touched their weapons. "How about we leave the training until tomorrow?" he said. "I'll ask Jean if she's free."

"Yeah, sounds good. Hey, Steve?"

He turned back. "Yeah?"

"Stop by the forge later."

Steve's next appointment was in Jean's office. The two of them had instituted daily strategy meetings, which they spent pouring over maps and discussing landing sites, traps, and ambushes. Steve's best guess was that once the enemy force discovered that the garrison had been mined, they would split up and send ships in both directions along the coast. The terrain got more mountainous to the north; that contingent would be slow-moving. It was the southbound group that posed the greatest threat, because it was possible that they could have the scent triggers that would allow them to control the kethyshi. They had to be found and eliminated as quickly as possible.

At the end of the meeting, Jean readily accepted Steve's invitation to join his and Tony's training session the next day. Then came lunch, then Steve helped the maintenance crew with their cleanup, then he and Spider-Man began to prep another shipment of supplies for the beta site (they were down to clothing, bedding, and toiletries).

That job took most of the afternoon, by which point Steve hoped that it was late enough to be 'later'. He headed for the forge.

The scene was not unlike the last time he'd been there. Tony and Alisha were hard at work, though this time Tony was the one at the anvil. They both looked up at Steve's entrance.

"Steve. Good," Tony said. "Yeah, let's do this. Li, could you get me the thing?"

Alisha had been boring holes into a strip of leather that was apparently being fashioned into a belt. She put down her tools and paused to fire a glare at Steve that he had no idea how to interpret, then ducked behind a set of shelves. An alarming amount of metal clanking followed.

Tony gave the spearpoint he'd been working on a few more quick blows with his hammer. "It's not going to handle like the other one," he said between strikes, not that Steve had any idea what he was talking about. "And without the serum, you probably shouldn't try any trick shots, since missing your catch and clipping yourself in the face might actually do some damage. But I figured it made sense to stick as closely as possible to what you were already used to, so… yeah. Here we go."

Alisha reemerged. She was carrying a shield.

Steve felt his jaw go slack.

It was vibranium. A tiny bit rougher in design than his old one, not painted, but other than that… the shape, the size… His hand went out, and Alisha passed it over. His arm slid through the straps. The weight. The balance. It was there. It was back.

Steve swallowed. His heart was pounding. "Tony…"

"Well, you're going to need it, right? And, uh… you might even deserve it."

(Alisha's expression finally made sense: she'd been warning him that if he failed to appreciate this gift, she'd personally toss him out on his ear.)

"By the way: armor fitting," Tony continued. "I've done Jean, I've done Kel, I've done Sam, and if we're proceeding in ascending order of awkwardness, you're up next. Tomorrow morning?"

He couldn't stop gazing at the shield on his arm. "Sure. Tony…"

"If you want to play with your new toy, take it outside."

Steve finally convinced his eyes to look up again, to find Tony's face. "I don't know what to say."

"Apparently. Though you've got my name down pretty good."

"Tony—"

"That's the one, yeah."

"Should I be somewhere else?" Alisha asked.

"No, you're fine."

" _Can_ I be somewhere else?"

Tony shot her a sour look.

The interlude gave Steve the time he needed to locate a bit more vocabulary. "Thank you," he said. "I'm overwhelmed."

"I noticed. Look, as was established this morning, there's still some repair work to be done. But I think, uh…" Tony scratched the back of his head. "It's getting there, wouldn't you say? Plus we're coming down to the wire on the combat situation, so… a shield ensued." He turned away and picked up his tools again. "And now you've got it, so scram. Don't knock your teeth out."

Feeling more whole, more complete than perhaps he'd felt in years, Steve scrammed.

 

* * *

 

**102 days**

The trip south had been — by local standards, at least — uneventful. They'd taken Tony's chimpanzee net along, which had been a huge help. They also had a non-George with them, which made them that much tougher a target.

Maybe more to the point, they'd long since shed their ignorance and nonchalance about this planet's hazards. Sam still remembered how indignant he'd been, all those months ago, at Kel's insistence that three Avengers couldn't handle a simple hike through the forest.

Dear Lord, how unprepared they'd all been.

They'd reached the remains of the outpost just before sunset the day before. The wilderness was well into the process of retaking the space. They'd explored long enough to establish that no predators had nested in the ruins, then they'd moved upwind of the ash that still hadn't fully dissipated, and settled in for the night.

Now, in the light of the new day, they were taking a closer look.

"Anything that looks like an eyeball," Sam said, "squash first and ask questions later."

"And let's steer clear of any people-eating moss," said Clint.

They were examining the region where all the greenhouses had once stood. In Sam's admittedly non-expert opinion, they were mostly looking at weeds. He'd seen the same kind of ground cover all over the place. Even so, Kel was according each and every plant a long moment of thoughtful attention. Given what was at stake, Sam wasn't complaining.

Now and then — more frequently than Sam had expected, all things considered — Kel placed a small stone in the dirt to mark a plant that had caught her attention. Her progress was slow but steady until she came to the last row of plots, where something stopped her dead in her tracks.

At first glance, the patch of dirt she was staring at looked empty. But once Sam leaned in closer, he could see the strands.

The barrier threads were fine like silk, but incredibly tough. By contrast, Sam suspected that these strands were exactly as fragile as they looked. They sprawled out across the dirt in a haphazard tangle, sprouting from a central stalk barely half an inch high. Though it might have been a trick of the light, Sam was pretty sure that some of the strands were tinged different colors: blues, reds, greens, golds.

Natasha asked, "Something useful?"

"Yes," said Kel. "Very."

 

* * *

 

**100 days**

When the salvage team returned, Non-George was pulling a cart full of plant specimens. Kel immediately oversaw their installment in the camp greenhouse.

She was oddly nonspecific about what she'd found. "Ask me again in a week, when I see what survives the trip."

Hopefully the portal-detecting plant (Tony _hated_ this planet) was among her finds, and they could correct this recent glitch in the plan.

As usual, Kel didn't attend dinner, but she reappeared after the food was gone, and asked Tony, "Do you want to have a conversation tonight?"

Technically they were on schedule, but he wasn't _that_ selfish. "You just got back," he said. "You must be tired. It's fine, it's not urgent. We can wait."

"If I was too tired to listen, I would say this," Kel replied. "I'm fine. The trip was easy. Unless you have nothing to talk about?"

That, obviously, was not the case. So they repaired to the SHED shed to discuss recent events.

Kel seldom if ever came out and stated her own opinion on something Tony'd done. But when he got to the shield thing, this big old grin lit up her face.

"Liked that, did you?" Tony asked.

"The thing that matters is if you—"

"I know, I know, disinterested third party. Yes, I felt good about doing it, felt good about how he responded, it was all a rousing interpersonal success. _Now_ can you tell me what you think?"

She'd gotten the grin mostly under control, but it was still coming out a bit around the eyes. "I think you did a very good thing," she said. "I'm happy that you and Steve continue to make progress."

"Yeah, it… um. It's better." Oh look, he was up and pacing again. What a shock. "But this doesn't mean that everything's fine now. I'm still angry about Siberia. And he thinks I _gave up_ on the team? _That_ was his takeaway, are you kidding me? I just—"

He snapped his jaw shut and tried to breathe or whatever. (He knew how to do this. _Don't deny the anger, don't try to push it away, but don't latch onto it, either. Just… accept, until it passes_.)

It passed.

Tony sighed heavily and sank down into the chair again. "Well, I guess a pleasant conversation was too much to hope for."

Kel didn't respond to that, because she never responded when Tony got sarcastic about his reactions to things. (God, these rules were so _annoying_.) When his best glower failed to make a dent in her lack of expression, he sighed again and waved his hand by way of retracting the remark.

Then she said, "Steve spoke to you of the way it happened to him."

"Yeah. I guess I owe him reciprocity. Assuming he wants to hear it."

"The offer by itself has value, I think."

It was a concrete next step, if nothing else. Tony filed the whole thing under 'food for thought', then directed the conversation elsewhere.

When they came out again, it was almost fully dark. Kel paused, and turned toward the eastern road.

"Vision approaches," she said. "We should go back to the group. I think there will be news."

Her radar was as reliable as ever. They'd just about made it back to the town square when Vision came swooping past them. He glided to a halt, and those who were still gathered in the dining area quickly scattered to retrieve those who had gone elsewhere.

When the whole team was assembled, Vision announced, "I visited the Nyth settlement this morning. They are on the verge of launching their second fleet. As instructed, I did not engage or otherwise reveal my presence. I expect that they will encounter the garrison minefield within two days."

All eyes turned to Jean.

"It was a long road that brought us here," she said, "and there are still challenges ahead. But we're ready. I believe that, and I believe in all of you. Let's finish this."

 


	44. Chapter 44

The last group of civilians, including Alisha, departed with Team One first thing in the morning. Spider-Man was still hanging around somewhere, and so was Aaron, but aside from them, the only people who remained were the defense team. The camp, which had once housed almost a hundred thirty people, was practically deserted.

Which made it baffling to Steve that he couldn't take a five-minute walk without running into the one person he did not, at that particular moment, want to see.

"Uh… Steve?"

He sighed. "Yeah, Sam?"

"Why do you have two black eyes?"

"Do I?" Steve asked. "I didn't notice."

Sam crossed his arms. "Okay, let's try this again. Do you have two black eyes because you clobbered yourself in the face with your new shield?"

With great dignity, if he did say so himself, he replied, "I really don't think 'clobbered' is the right word."

"Then how would you put it?"

"I might have… grazed myself."

"Uh-huh. Trying to bounce it off of something without super-soldier reflexes?"

"It's actually not the reflexes," Steve said. "I can see it coming, I just can't quite move fast enough to catch it before… you know."

"You get clobbered in the face?"

"Basically." Every piece of his face from cheekbones to forehead was throbbing like mad, and he could taste blood at the back of his throat. He had a sneaking suspicion that, in addition to the black eyes, he'd also fractured his nose.

But even though he'd missed the catch, he'd _definitely_ seen it coming.

Up to that point, Sam had been doing a reasonable job of not laughing. He looked aside for a second when his expression threatened to get away from him, then said, "Please tell me you're on your way to the infirmary."

" _Yes_ , Sam, I'm on my way to the infirmary."

"That's something, anyway. Steve?"

"Yeah?

"Do you have to take the shield with you?"

Steve looked down at his shield arm, then back up. "Yeah," he said. "I do."

 

* * *

 

In response to Jean's summons, which had been delivered by Kel after breakfast, Tony entered the admin building and knocked at the office door.

Between the surveying Vision had done and the documents they'd found at the garrison, they had detailed topographical data for quite a large region. Jean spent so much time pouring over her maps that Tony was surprised she hadn't developed a permanent crick in her neck, and that was exactly the posture he found her in.

Besides the maps, which were pretty much everywhere, the only other notable item in the room was a plate that had been purloined from the kitchen. It held two piles of pebbles, one dark grey and the other silver. (The place had been a mine, after all. No shortage of rocks.) More of these pebbles had been placed on the maps at what were no doubt key strategic locations.

"Hi, Tony," Jean said without looking up. "Come in."

He crossed the room and took a seat on the edge of her desk, careful not to disturb the papers. "This is interesting," he said, pointing to the stones. "What's your game, chess? Or please make my day and say it's backgammon."

The gambit was a success: she quit staring at the maps and leaned back in her chair. "Sorry — I've only tried backgammon once or twice. Chess I'm decent at, but it never fired my enthusiasm. I prefer Go."

"Ah. In that case, how does our territory look?"

She gestured to a stretch of shore where a lot of silver pebbles were clustered. "For the moment, I'm yielding the northern cliffs. There are only a few natural harbors suitable for ships the size of their troop transports, and Vision has mined all of them within four hundred miles." She glanced at Tony. "He does solve certain problems, doesn't he."

"Yep."

"It will take them days to find a landing site, and weeks to move hundreds of troops anywhere close to our position. I'll let them fight with the terrain awhile, and cut them off when they get closer. Hopefully that will give us enough time to deal with the southern contingent."

Tony nodded. They'd all discussed this the night before. The defense force was due to head out that morning, just as soon as Vision arrived with an updated scouting report. The mission: to intercept and destroy the southbound enemy soldiers before they could recruit any giant leopards.

"Was that why you wanted to see me?" he asked. "Private chat about the combat situation?" A sudden misgiving took hold. "I'm still part of the plan, right? I mean, we didn't discuss it explicitly, but last night this sounded like an 'all hands on deck' situation, so—"

"Yes, of course you're coming with us," Jean said quickly. "At least, I assume you are."

"Good. Yes. I mean, I can think of other stuff I'd rather be doing, but…"

"So can I. But." She favored him with her understated smile. "No, I asked you here because Peter has requested a meeting with me, and I anticipate that the subject will be one where your input is also required."

…Oh. Well, that explained _that_. Tony shut his eyes for a second and indulged in a fantasy where the kid came in and announced that he had been infected by a germ of common sense and intended to stay well clear of any and all hazardous situations.

( _Right_.)

On cue, there was a knock at the door, and in walked Peter with Kel behind him.

His eyes went wide when they landed on Tony. "Oh. Hey, Mr. Stark. Um. I didn't know you were going to be here."

"Yeah, funny how that works."

"If you want to speak privately, I'm willing to do that," said Jean. "But I'm wondering how likely it is that I won't be able to answer you before consulting with Tony."

"Um," the kid said again. He was stuck and he knew it. "Yeah, no, I guess you're right. This is fine." He steadied himself, then focused on Jean and launched into what was obviously a pre-rehearsed speech. "As you know, we are about to start the war, and I was wondering if you would be willing to reconsider letting me be part of your army. I think that you should do this for the following reasons. First, if you keep Vision doing surveillance and carrying messages like he has been, then I'm the only super-strength person you've got left. Second, when you needed people to drive the wagons back and forth, I volunteered, and I did it for seven round trips without any problems, which shows that I'm responsible and can follow instructions."

"You know you're not interviewing for a paper route, right?"

Jean shot him a look. "Tony."

" _Third_ ," Peter said loudly, "I've spent more time in the forest than anybody except Kel by, like, a _lot_ , which means I can help keep the rest of the team safe while we're traveling. And fourth, we're ridiculously outnumbered and I think you need every advantage you can get."

Tony — contrary to his instincts — kept quiet for the moment. He wanted to see what Jean did with this.

At first, all she did was steeple her fingers. "Peter…"

"Seventy days of wagons!" the kid exclaimed. "Do you know how _boring_ that got? But that was— like you said, both of you, that was what everyone needed. Food and tools and medicine and chemical supplies and whatever. I understood. That was the job, and I did it."

"Yes, you did," said Jean.

"But now, what everyone needs is to keep the enemy army away from them until we can all go home. You could use another fighter, I know you could. _Please_."

She considered him carefully for a moment. "The last time you experienced a battlefield," she said, "I believe you didn't care for it."

Peter flinched. "I know. I screwed up and you got hurt. That's why I have to do better this time." He reached up and, after a moment's hesitation, pulled off his mask, revealing a fifteen-year-old kid with tousled hair. "Look, I get what I'm asking," he said. "Really, I do. It's not like I _want_ to fight a huge army. I think it's… it's probably going to get pretty bad out there. And I know you want to keep me safe and everything, but what about the rest of you? What if something happens to one of you, and it wouldn't have if I'd been there? It's not fair, you just telling me I have to live with that. It's _not_."

Jean was quiet for a long beat, until Peter started to squirm a bit. When she spoke, her voice was gentle.

"I'm not dismissing you," she told him. "I'm listening. And I appreciate what you're offering, I promise you I do."

He groaned in dismay. "That's just the thing you say before you say 'no'."

"When we meet the enemy, it will be with the intention of killing as many as we can, by whatever means necessary. That's not a position I can put you in."

"Because I froze during the ambush that time, I know," Peter said. "But that won't happen again, I _promise_!"

"It isn't simply a matter of determination," Jean said. "It's a matter of training — not only technique but intent. I'm able to cope with our situation because Kel began to prepare me years ago. You simply don't have that background. Why would you? You're not a soldier."

"So teach me!"

" _No_. That I absolutely will not do."

" _Why_?"

Jean didn't respond immediately. Instead, she stood up and walked around her desk, lightly touching Tony's shoulder as she passed behind him, and came to rest at the other end of the room where yet another map — a simple sketch of the camp and its immediate environs — was pinned to the wall.

"Do you remember when we first took over the camp?" she asked Peter.

"Yeah, sure. When you fought the huge Minotaur guy."

"Yes." With one finger, she traced a line from the mine entrance to the town square. "I didn't feel much at the time. I'd mentally rehearsed it so often that the experience barely felt real." She turned to Peter with a sheepish smile. "This is embarrassing to admit, but I was more nervous about the speech I had to give to the rest of the camp afterward.

"It's worth noting, too, that I have no sympathy whatsoever for the commandant. He ran a slave labor camp. He had me tortured. Most everyone here would agree, I think, that he deserved his fate. But the fact remains that he was on his knees, staring me right in the eyes, when I executed him. I didn't feel much at the time, but later that night…" She trailed off and looked away. "And I still have nightmares about those eyes. I accepted that particular burden as part of the price I had to pay for allowing events to unfold the way that they did. But I will not inflict it on you as well. I will not. I could never forgive myself for a failure of that magnitude."

Peter scuffed the ground with his foot and didn't reply.

"I know you disagree," Jean said gently. "Perhaps nothing I can say will change your mind. But at the very least, I hope you understand that I am not making this decision capriciously."

Like many before him, Peter was humbled in the face of her sincerity. "I came here because I wanted to help people," he said, mostly addressing the floor.

"I know," she said. "You have helped, and you will continue to help. There are other places for you besides the front lines." She moved back toward the center of the room, and her tone grew more business-like. "Aaron has pointed out — quite annoyingly — that expecting Kel to serve as the unit's medic will limit her usefulness in the field. He wants to come with us and set up a first-aid station. I am… _profoundly_ unhappy with that idea. But it becomes slightly more palatable if he had you there with him."

Tony asked, "How close to the combat zone are we talking?"

"That depends on the specifics of the terrain, but it would have to be relatively close or the concept is useless." Jean turned, and now Tony was the one getting hit full-force with those earnest eyes. "If you say 'no', I won't overrule you," she said. "But this could be a tremendous help to us, and I think the risks are manageable."

He grit his teeth. If only Peter had damned the suit. The _full_ version of the suit, with all the features that Tony'd been planning to introduce over time as the kid got the hang of it. (And that wasn't even getting into the ideas he'd had for the next stage of upgrades.)

Tony trusted his tech. He lived by his creations, those things he'd built with his hands. Encase the boy in enough layers of weapons and armor and data and… yeah, maybe, _maybe_ he deserved his place in the field with the rest of them. On a very bad day when the stakes were that high.

But thanks to what this awful universe did to electronics, none of it _worked_. The only thing the kid had standing between him and the enemy army was a snappy fashion statement.

All eyes had turned to Tony. Peter had lit up like a lightbulb when Jean had floated her idea, and his eagerness had him practically bouncing in place. Jean could say what she liked about backing Tony's call, but the fact was that it might already be impossible to walk this one back.

"I'd say I need to think it over, but since we're all leaving shortly, that's out." It was Tony's turn to stand up and pace. "Let me ask you this: every time you have been told to stay put — every single time, with remarkable consistency — you have done the opposite thing. So it seems to me that we tell you to stay at the aid station, then — oops, there you are on the front lines. Why should I believe that that won't happen?"

"I couldn't leave Aaron by himself, could I?" he said. "If we were just out there in the forest, with all the different predators around? I would never do that, Mr. Stark. I promise."

"I hope not," Jean said, and this time she closed in until she was looming over him. "Aaron came to this place because I asked him to. He is very dear to me, and his safety is my responsibility. Your job would be to protect him from predators, keep him hidden from any wayward enemy patrols, and if necessary, get him out of danger. If you left him alone for any length of time, no matter what the reason…"

Peter shook his head rapidly. "I wouldn't."

"I want your word on that."

"I promise," he said again. "You've got it. My word, I mean. I won't leave him for a second."

Jean took a step back, and her expression softened. "All right," she said. "Tony?"

_Say no, he sneaks along anyway. At least this way he has a job and a better-than-even chance of staying where we put him._

Tony held out until Peter started to sweat. Then he said, "Guess you'd better pack a bag."

The lightbulb impression switched back on with about sixty extra watts. "Yes! I'll go do that right now! We're leaving soon, right?"

"The bulk of the team is, yes," said Jean. For the first time, she looked over and acknowledged Kel, who was still standing in the doorway. "But there's one more thing before you go. Since you and Kel can move so much faster than the rest of us, I have another job for you."

 

* * *

 

With the help of the horses, the team reached the ruins of the outpost that evening. They made camp for the night after crossing the river, then continued southeast, descending the narrow dip in the cliff where it flattened out into a rocky but passable hill. Natasha and Clint, as the only ones who'd been this way before, led the way.

Vision spent the trip zipping back and forth between the team and the enemy contingent, tracking their progress. His position reports revealed that the enemy was taking exactly the course that Jean had offered them. She and Vision had deliberately left a particular cove unmined; the Nyth had landed their ships there and set out on a straight line toward the hill.

Predictable. Indicative of overconfidence.

(Or maybe just… confidence. Too soon to tell.)

Vision was good with numbers, but he wasn't a replacement for combat instincts. Someone human-bodied needed to take a look. Kel would have been the natural choice to run reconnaissance, but she and Peter hadn't caught up to the group yet. Natasha graciously volunteered herself and Clint to take the job instead. Vision's directions made the convoy easy to find.

That and the fact that it was huge.

They'd been expecting huge. They were prepared for it.

Still.

The two of them shadowed the convoy until it halted for the evening. Then they returned to the team and gave their report.

"Well," Jean said afterward. "We have our work cut out for us. We're waiting on Peter and Kel now. I'm hoping that they arrive in time for us to launch our operation tonight, but if not, we'll adjust. In the meantime, let's make sure this area is secure."

They were in the lowlands, where the trees were oversized and widely spaced. It made for good sightlines, as forests went. The chimpanzees liked to nest in the first layer of branches, and Natasha and Clint lured and killed two of them. Otherwise, the vicinity was clear.

It was getting dark by the time the various patrol teams regrouped. Aaron, of course, had remained behind to tether the horses and begin to set up camp, and Jean had remained behind to fuss over Aaron.

His idea of staying close by to provide medical support was — unfortunately for Jean — a very good one. They'd found an excellent spot for the aid station: a hollow in the ground overshadowed by a rocky overhang, just under a mile from the enemy campsite. With some judicious camouflaging, it was almost invisible unless someone knew what they were looking for.

Or unless someone could empathically sense the team's lifesigns. They'd just started to make themselves comfortable in their little cave when Kel and Peter came in at a hard run.

After they'd jogged to a halt, Kel continued to pace in aimless circles in the manner of someone trying to get her heart rate back under control — a highly unusual display of fatigue from her. Peter, meanwhile, doubled right over.

"Holy crap," he panted. "Holy _crap_."

Tony set aside his pack with a concerned frown. "You okay, kid?"

"Sure," he said, still breathless. "I'm great. I mean, I might be kind of dying, but other than that. Do you guys have any water?"

He had a canteen on a shoulder strap, clearly empty. Jean had already started to fill another one from their reserves. She handed it to Tony, who passed it on to Peter.

"What were you two doing, exactly?" he asked.

" _Running_." Peter managed to straighten up enough to take a long drink. "I'm, like, way faster at sprinting, but Kel just kind of starts and… doesn't stop, ever. It's freaky."

"I'm not human," Kel said.

"Yeah, that too."

Jean asked, "Did you find it?"

"Yes, of course." Kel handed over a small metal box.

"Excellent."

"So," Peter said, "what did we miss?"

Eyelines shifted toward Clint and Natasha.

"We make it about five hundred hostiles," Clint said. "Mostly Minotaurs, five scorpions, a platoon of about fifty Geckos and two fireball-squids. And here's the fun part: tanks. The army has giant, centipede-y crawling tanks."

"More like millipedes than centipedes," Natasha said.

Sam groaned. "Can we _please_ not do the animal versus animal thing this time?"

"You're the one who tried to turn the Geckos into Monitors," Tony said.

"That's because—"

"Let's return to the subject at hand," Jean said firmly. "Now that we're all here, we can start setting up for the operation tonight. Vision, I need you to keep an eye on the northbound contingent. Our assumptions about their rate of progress are just that — assumptions. If we're wrong, you need to make damned sure they don't reach the labor camp before we return."

"Are you certain that you can handle this group yourself?" Vision asked.

"If we can't handle this, we have no shot at what's coming," Jean said flatly. "And if we lose the camp this soon, we're dead. Stay with them, and stay out of sight unless a confrontation is absolutely necessary. Rendezvous back at the camp in two days."

"And if you don't return by then?"

"Don't come after us. Hold the camp at all costs."

Vision gave his assent and departed.

She turned to the rest of them. "The plan hasn't changed, tanks notwithstanding. We keep this as simple as possible: toxins first, then explosives, and finally hand-to-hand to mop up the stragglers."

"The poison will kill the Mjentur," Kel said. "But the Geckos? They're very different. Probably won't be damaged. And the Nyth also won't care."

"Fair enough," Clint said. "I'd hate to have hauled all these grenades down here for nothing."

"Steve, Kel, let's go look at maps some more," said Jean. "Everyone else, get some rest. We'll suit up and head out in four hours."

There was another perk to having Aaron along. Natasha gave him a nod when he caught her eye, and he crossed the little cave to sit down beside her. He picked up her hand in his, and closed his eyes.

Kel's empathic efforts tended to read like pressure. Aaron's were quite different. It felt like threads of some fine and delicate silk were slowly creeping from her wrist down through her fingers. It was a bizarre and not altogether comfortable sensation, but after each session, a little more sensation and control returned.

Clint, on her other side, was prepping some servings of rehydrated grains. Sam was doing the same a little further on, while Jean, Kel and Steve clustered around a lamp at the opposite end of the cave.

Just beyond the overhang, Peter was checking on the horses while Tony made a pest of himself.

"Now, I want to be absolutely clear on this: you stay _here_ ," he said. "You do _not_ come spidering after us. You stay here, look after Aaron, take care of the horses — George is a troublemaker, keep him on a short leash — and wait for us to get back."

"Yeah, I _know_ ," said Peter.

"Good. Then let's take it from the top. What are you _not_ going to do?"

"Mr. Stark, come on!"

Clint leaned in and muttered, "Ten bucks says the kid's no more than half an hour behind us."

Natasha tilted her head. "I don't know. It was smart of Jean to give him something to do. Might take as much as an hour."

He nodded toward her arm. "How's that coming along?"

"Better," she said. "'Normal' is a ways off yet, but it's getting there."

In fact Aaron had given her no guarantees, promising only to work on it for as long as he was able to make progress, and giving her stretches and exercises to do in the meantime. In this context, slow change was a good thing: she didn't have to relearn the hand's responses after every treatment.

"Good to hear," Clint said. "So. Millipedes? You're sure?"

"Positive."

"Huh. In that case… what do you think?"

"They've got five hundred. We've got seven." She shrugged. "No problem."

 

* * *

 

The little confab between Jean, Kel and Steve broke up, after which Kel departed on another errand, taking the metal box with her. (Good. Tony knew what was inside, having been the one to build the thing, and the further away she took it, the better.) Jean spent a few minutes checking in with the rest of the team, Tony included, then settled into a group with Sam, Barton and Romanoff.

Peter was fine. Once the horses had finished their evening graze, he'd nudged them all toward the back of the cave, where they'd settled down to sleep in a confusing tangle of wings and scales. Now he and Aaron were sitting together, practicing some sign by the light of a lamp.

That left Tony with only one item on his to-do list.

He shifted down a bit until he was sitting next to Steve. "I know this is not the time to start a whole _thing_ , but just as a heads-up: very soon there will come a point when I need to hear exactly what you knew and when you knew it. And whatever you do, don't forget the part where Romanoff was with you."

Steve flinched at Romanoff's name, but all he said was, "Okay. Yes. That's fair."

"Okay," said Tony. "And, um. You answered my questions before. That was… decent of you. If you wanted… I mean, if you had any interest— if you were willing to—"

"Yes," Steve said quickly. "If you want to talk about it. I think understanding what happened is… helpful. It's helping. Isn't it?"

Tony nodded. "Yeah. Anyway, I only bring this up because I heard a rumor that you and I are going to be assigned together, so…"

"Jean told me, too," Steve said. "Or she asked me, and I said I was fine with it. Are you?"

"I think so, yeah." And it wasn't even a lie. The training sessions with Kel had helped, and so had the shield thing. The anger and hurt were still present, but they no longer intruded or overwhelmed. He could handle this.

Tony relaxed a bit, and stretched out his legs. "You're really letting Jean call the shots, huh. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes…"

"Is it that hard to believe?"

"No. It's harder. Take however hard to believe you think it is, then bump it up by at least a factor of five."

Steve gave a quiet chuckle. "Okay. I guess I deserved that. It wasn't an easy decision. There were a lot of factors." His quick glance in Tony's direction seemed almost shy. "One of the things I thought about was how much you trust her. That's not something you hand out lightly. So I figure… there's got to be something there, right?"

Wow. That was… but like he'd already said, this wasn't the moment to start a _thing_. "Guess we'll find out," Tony said. "By the way, is it true you clobbered yourself in the face with your shield while trying a trick shot like I specifically said not to do?"

Steve groaned and leaned his head back. "Sam told you."

"Sam told _everyone_."

 

* * *

 

It was four hours later, and the team had suited up: facepaint and filter masks, and camo fatigues over lightweight body armor.

(Stark knew his business. Although their fitting session had been rife with suppressed anger and chilly silence, Natasha couldn't complain about the end result. The suit had individual armor plates, padded for stealth and separated for flexibility, plus pockets for all her knives and a vibranium arm guard that could be used to block or strike.)

They'd done the mission briefing already, but Jean was the type who needed to give one last speech. The six of them gathered together.

"The first step is pod distribution," Jean said. "Natasha with Clint, Sam with me. We'll stay together until we've penetrated their campsite, then split up to maximize coverage. We can expect multiple layers of security, including patrols and automated systems. Steve and Tony, you're securing our exit route. Kel will catch up with you once her other jobs are done. Anything we can think of, I assume that the enemy can think of. Move slowly and methodically, and stay alert for traps and snares.

"Even in the fantasy scenario where everything goes perfectly, we can still expect to face at least fifty Geckos and their affiliates who won't be taken out by the poison. Remember that our supply of grenades is comfortable but finite. Make your shots count. Once it comes down to hand-to-hand, our job is to contain and neutralize." She paused, and looked around the circle. "Everyone ready?"

"We're good, Boss-Lady," Clint said.

"Then round one begins. Let's go."

It didn't take them long to spot the first layer of Mjentur patrols, which was the signal for Steve and Tony to split off. The infiltration team continued southeast, sliding past multiple sentries making their rounds at irregular intervals.

So far, so good.

A glow was visible in the distance: the camp perimeter had lighting. Cover was relatively sparse, thanks to the oversized trees. This was where things got tricky.

And there was another problem. Natasha signalled a halt, and pointed at the ground cover just ahead of them. It was too dense, too uniform. Sam took one look and vigorously signed for them all to take cover, which confirmed her guess. This had to be the vine that produced the eyeball plants.

Sure enough… yes, it really was a fist-sized eyeball sitting at the top of a waist-high plant stalk. It came slinking past on its bed of vines, swivelling as it went. Natasha held her breath and watched it out of the corner of her eye. Luckily, its visual acuity wasn't superior to the human kind. It moved past their position without any apparent concern.

It was fair to guess that disturbing the vines would send up some kind of alarm. The perimeter net was much too thick to walk through, and much too wide to jump. It seemed like the only way over it was through the trees.

But perhaps there was an alternative.

Kel's find at the research outpost — the tiny stem that sprouted a rainbow array of gossamer-thin fibers — had survived its transplantation and was thriving in the camp greenhouse. Certain of the fibers, if her information was correct, transmitted standardized chemical commands for Nyth plant tech: red for 'grow', blue for 'shrink'. Everyone with two free hands had spent an afternoon manufacturing on- and off-switches: a short length of filament was snipped off, the two ends affixed to a wooden base to form a loop, and the device (such as it was) covered with a wooden cap.

Natasha pulled an off-switch from her pocket and uncapped it. She leaned in as close as she dared to the outer edge of the perimeter net, and looped the filament around a protruding vine.

All on its own, it tightened down and snapped off of its base. The vine fell back with a barely visible dent in it.

Nothing else of note happened.

They waited under cover for at least ten minutes. Another eyeball slithered past. No progress occurred.

Clint tapped her shoulder, and gestured upward. They had spikes for tree climbing, if it came to that. Free-climbing a two-hundred-foot tree was not Natasha's first choice, but sitting there uselessly was her last.

She reached for her climbing gear, and that was when the twitch of motion caught her eye. The vine she'd looped was curling up. Retracting.

It went achingly slowly. Another ten minutes went by before the vines had pulled back enough to clear a path, and even then, it was no more than six inches wide.

The next problem was that the perimeter net led past the trees and into the lighted region where another layer of sentries waited. Once they crossed the net, they would make it about two steps before they were spotted.

Jean stood up and — with great emphasis, to no obvious recipient — signed _Now!_

But Kel didn't need line of sight to pick up on a signal like that. All she had to do was read the motion empathically. The team started their run, and exactly on cue, a terrible shriek went up from the other side of the enemy campsite. The two guards that should have spotted them were caught facing the other way, and Sam and Clint made short work of them. Natasha already had the on-switch at the ready and crouched for a second to loop another vine, closing the door behind them. With Jean leading the way and the guys dragging the bodies, they got out from beneath the perimeter lights and took cover behind one of the tanks.

The shriek of the alarm finally went still. Distantly, Natasha could hear gruff Mjentur voices, overlapping. Their tones carried annoyance, not fear or anger. She couldn't see the perimeter breach, but she knew that Kel's plan had been to find a bear and send it charging. Eye-catching, but not a serious threat.

The team of four collectively took a breath. They'd made it inside.

The tanks were… Natasha settled on 'parked', because she _really_  didn't want to say 'sleeping', around the boundary of the camp. They were long and segmented, with dozens of skinny legs all tucked up beneath them. Sometimes the legs twitched. But the bodies of the tanks were clearly hollow, built of wood, with hatches in the sides. As a lifeform, it made zero sense.

An odd detail: the wood was marked with shallow grooves that ran across the body in gentle swoops and spirals. It was the first instance she could remember of an object of Nyth construction bearing any form of decoration.

This op was about patience. Now they had to wait until the momentary excitement at the perimeter had died down and everyone had gone back to sleep. They had good cover here, between a tank and the back of a tent, and they tried to make themselves small and still.

Some time later, two sets of footsteps went past on the other side of the tank. It was a sentry team, walking with the unhurried gait of people who did not anticipate excitement in their immediate future. The rest of the camp was quiet. There were no indications of alarm.

Natasha caught Jean's eye and gave her a nod. They split up as agreed and began to circle the camp in opposite directions.

Clint and Jean carried bows and arrows. Some of the arrows were rigged with pods bearing Kel's nerve agent. In the months since they'd taken the garrison, Kel had upped the toxicity even further and folded in a sedative. The plan was to fire the pods up into the trees and let the toxin slowly blanket the area. If her formula was right, the Mjentur would be rendered unconscious before they suffocated.

When Natasha and Clint came to a position with a good angle on the closest of the towering trees, she checked that the way was clear, then gave him the signal. Clint nocked the first arrow, aimed up, and loosed. It lodged, almost silently, in a fork far above a cluster of tents.

Yet more waiting followed. They crouched in the shadows, alert for any signs that they'd been detected. From the right, there came a faint whisper that might have been Jean's arrow, or might have been nothing. No response. The camp remained still.

They moved to the next target.

 

* * *

 

It was just ground cover. Bushes and roots and dirt. But somehow Steve was seeing things that Tony wasn't, because for the third time since they'd set out, he stopped and crouched by one particular patch of dirt, and delicately uncovered a tripwire.

Tony didn't particularly want to be impressed by Steve… but maybe he was a tiny bit impressed.

He crouched down as well, miniature lamp in hand, and examined the trigger mechanism. It was the same as the other two they'd dug up, and he briskly disarmed it. The wire was attached to a curved metal box that obviously held a shaped charge.

Fine. More explosives for the good guys.

The line of reasoning was simple enough: the enemy, in anticipation of an attack (and possibly in retaliation for the minefields they'd already run into), had set out a field of fairly nasty traps to the southwest. If the infiltration team needed to make a quick exit, it was a good bet that the enemy would try to herd them in that direction. But now that Tony and Steve had cleverly cleared out the hazards, they had a pre-approved escape route.

They'd heard the shrieking noise a while back that meant that Kel had loosed her diversion. By this point, the infiltration team was supposed to be past the perimeter and well into the process of delivering their packages.

Steve crept along, doing his thing, and Tony followed a few paces behind. He couldn't help but notice how far they were getting from the campsite.

"How much longer are you planning on doing this?" he asked. "I don't want to be out of position when the rest of the team needs backup."

"I know," Steve said, "but I've still got tracks in this direction, which means—"

"One more," Kel said, popping out of goddamned nowhere. "The trail stops soon after. Here."

Tony was too busy having a fucking heart attack to take the bomb from her, so Steve stepped in and added it to the bag with the others. "Thanks," he said.

Kel frowned at Tony. "Are you all right?"

"Yes, fine, just… _don't_ materialize out of thin air like that. It's impolite."

Her look was not so much _sorry for nearly startling you into an early grave_ as it was _there's no dealing with humans and their quirks_ , but she said, "I'll try to remember."

"How are we doing?" Steve asked her.

"Many in the camp are already dead or useless," she said. "I killed all the perimeter guards that I passed, but there are more. You can help me clear the other side when we go back."

Tony stole a glance at Steve, who got a bit of a look on his face at her phrasing. But all he said was, "Sure. Happy to help."

 

* * *

 

The outcry — not that Natasha was keeping score or anything — started from Sam and Jean's side of the campsite.

Most of the tents were clustered together in the roughly circular region that was ringed by the tanks, but there was another, much smaller sector that was set off to one side. It had to be for either VIPs or outsiders, or possibly both — in other words, the Geckos and the Nyth. (Exactly the group that was presumed immune to the toxin.) The infiltration teams had started on the opposite side of camp from the VIP sector, and now Natasha and Clint had finally worked their way around to it.

They were sheltered behind the last of the tanks. Natasha hadn't caught sight of the other team yet, which only meant that Jean and Sam were being appropriately cautious. She crept forward, hoping to discover that Jean was doing exactly the same thing from the other side of the circle.

The shout that went up was deep and guttural — a Mjentur voice, quickly echoed by a second. It came from right where Jean and Sam were supposed to be.

A cluster of tents in the VIP sector instantly disgorged more Mjentur. They had larger versions of the filter masks over their muzzles — a lucky guess, or else part of the shouted warning. Sturdy leather armor, a variety of spears or swords and shields, and their bull's horns had gold-plated tips.

Elite squad, then. Ones who were smart enough not to have been fooled by the diversion. Interesting.

The other tents were slower to respond, but even so, the window of opportunity was closing fast. Clint switched arrows and loosed a barrage of grenade-bearing bolts. Blasts thundered one after the other until Natasha's ears rang, and clusters of the emerging Geckos fell shrieking or, if they were lucky, dead.

Not all of them, though. Too many targets. At least thirty made the trees.

And where the hell were the fireball-squids?

Movement from behind. The perimeter sentries tried to rush in, and that was a mistake. Those who cut through the campsite clutched at their throats and keeled over choking.

Another group behind them learned from their error and changed course for one of the tanks.

Clint swung around to target them, but Jean was faster. She burst from cover, grenade arrow at the ready, and fired at the head of the tank. Behind her, Sam was dueling a Gold-Tip, spear against spear.

The grenade went off, and the leading edge of the would-be tank drivers was blown back. The poison took the rest.

(And the image wasn't quite right. A detail amiss. Something…)

No time.

A tank wasn't a pursuit vehicle. Going for it had been an act of desperation, a last grasp at survival rather than an attempt to neutralize the intruders. The Gold-Tips didn't bother. They and the surviving Geckos circled around to the rear, and charged.

Natasha drew her sword, and Clint traded bow for spear. Shoulder to shoulder, they met the enemy.

 

* * *

 

It didn't take an empath to detect the battle. They all heard the grenades.

Steve ditched the bag of stolen explosives and broke into a run, and the other two followed hard on his heels. Each blast rang in his ears ( _echoes of a hundred other battlefields_ ), first a deafening cluster all together, then a couple more. Then the sounds switched to chaos and cries and clashing metal.

The battle came into view, lit by vine-lights on the perimeter and small fires from the recent explosions. He saw Jean and Sam, back to back, outnumbered, fighting for their lives. Natasha and Clint further away. Lots of dead bodies, too many live hostiles.

"Stay with Tony," he said to Kel (ignoring Tony's " _Hey_ "), and changed course to cut around the perimeter.

He hadn't seen the fireball squids before, but they weren't tough to identify. This one was… squelching along in the shadows. The blue glow he'd been warned about was gathering about its eye.

Its target was Natasha.

Steve sprinted toward her. Legs churned, lungs burned. Every scrap of strength that had been stolen and then clawed back, it was all he had and it had to be enough, it had to—

The eyeball flared and his shield came up like he'd been born with it on his arm. He cut his momentum and braced himself, and the blast bounced straight back and spattered flesh and tentacles everywhere. The squid collapsed.

Natasha yanked her sword out of a Gecko and said, "Thanks."

"Well, I owed you one."

She was in rough shape. The darkness hid the bloodstains on her clothes, but not completely. Beside her, Clint finished off the last of his opponents, which left them with a few seconds to breathe.

"Where are we at?" Steve asked.

"Surrounded," Clint said. He was also bloodied and breathing hard. "Not dead yet. So pretty much on schedule. We took the scorpions with the first salvo, and Jean got the other squid a few minutes ago. Down to Geckos and Minotaurs. By the way?" He dipped his spearpoint in the direction of a particularly huge Mjentur who was lurking on the edge of the battlefield. "The big guys aren't really trying. They'll only get into it with you if you try and break the perimeter. Waiting to see what kind of backup we had."

"Speaking of which," Natasha added, "this would be an excellent time for Kel to—"

A sudden scream pierced the air. The battle seemed to freeze around them as Kel bore a Gecko to the ground, her hand wrapped around its muzzle. It died, like all her victims did, in agony.

The rest of the Geckos visibly lost their nerve.

And that was when the massive Mjentur that Clint had indicated took a step forward and announced, "Enough."

The scene went silent.

Not entirely still, though. The Geckos — of which only about ten or so remained — seemed determined to put some distance between themselves and Kel, even if they could only do it inch by inch.

The Mjentur gave a snort of disgust, and added, "Run, you cowards."

They didn't need telling twice.

That left Steve's team alone inside a circle of Mjentur. They began to shift into a circle of their own. Each movement was slow and measured.

"So," Clint said quietly, "did I get knocked on the head again, or did the giant Minotaur just speak English?"

"It's a translator," Kel said. "Didn't know they worked here."

As Steve's people formed up, the enemy closed in. There were fifteen of them, all armed, all huge, none obviously injured.

"The Nyth are good at tech problems," the leader said to Kel. "Not as good with personnel. I told them you couldn't be trusted."

"True. Better for them if they listened."

Jean had one arm wrapped around her side in a way that Steve didn't like at all, but her voice was steady as she said, "We're going home. If we have to go through you, so be it."

The Mjentur snorted again. "With this? This is all you have?"

She threw a derisive look around the battlefield. "This is all you have left?"

"Yes, against every one of my recommendations, the Nyth insisted on underestimating you. Their arrogance killed them, as it should. I now have the standing to assume command of our remaining forces." His eyes narrowed as he studied her. "You also have the machine, of course. An interesting creation. I'm sure the Nyth would prefer to take it intact. We know it's made of vibranium. We found traces in the water. If you know anything, you know that sending it into combat against us is as good as killing it. And there's one more weapon. One you think we won't anticipate, held in reserve to protect the mountain hideaway that you think we can't reach. But other than that? Yes, of course this is all you have. I understand it, and I will destroy it."

"You lost people today," said Kel. "Stay, and you'll lose the rest."

He sneered. "Yes, we should flee in the face of the fearsome Brenith reputation, like the lizards did. Straight into your trap."

Well, damn.

In a piece of timing so perfect as to be cruel, distant cries of pain began to drift in from the east. Kel and Spider-Man had tracked down the wild patch of carnivorous moss and carried a piece of it back, and Kel had loosed it along a likely path of retreat. She'd guessed well.

So had the Mjentur.

"Run a different way, then," Kel said coldly. "Don't stop."

"Don't chase us," he countered, "or your pet Terrans will be defenseless."

Then he made a sharp hand gesture, and his team all fell back into the forest.

Okay. All things considered, that was way too easy.

Then again, maybe not. Jean promptly folded up and hit the ground, and Sam was seconds behind her. Natasha listed to the side and Clint caught her on his arm.

Tony dropped to his knees next to Jean and started delicately poking about her midsection. Clint lowered Natasha to the ground, ignoring her glare, and Steve headed for Sam.

Kel was the only one who paid no attention to the wounded. She was looking out into the forest, not in the direction that the Mjentur had retreated, but to the west.

"At least I know who my opponent is," Jean said, and now her voice was tight with pain. "Kel—"

"Yes, I think they really leave, but there's another problem."

Jean groaned. "Please tell me that this is a _small_ problem, bordering on inconsequential, easily remedied?"

"I don't think so. Three kethyshi come this way."

 


	45. Chapter 45

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for animal deaths.

Jean was silent with her eyes closed for long enough that Steve lined up their next moves and drew a breath to get them started. But then she said, "Yes. Fine."

"Really?" said Clint. "Because those weren't the words I was thinking of."

"The Nyth must have activated their summoning signal the moment they landed. If the cats are just getting here now, then they probably haven't been tuned to our scent specifically. They'll be curious at first, not enraged. That gives us our window."

"I realize this is the head injury talking," Sam said, "but with all this fresh meat lying around, is there any chance we could just slip away?"

"Maybe," Natasha replied, "but what happens when they get hungry again tomorrow?"

He sighed. "Yeah. All right."

"The plan is the same one we already had," Jean said. "Target each leopard in turn and fire a grenade down its throat."

"Jaguar," Natasha said.

Jean rolled her eyes. "Get the injured into a tank. Feel free to drop Natasha in headfirst."

" _You're_ injured," Tony said.

"I'm exempting myself. Kel, could you take my mind off of this?"

Steve agreed with the basic elements of her plan, but not with her participation in it. From Tony's thunderous scowl, he took the same view.

Hopefully Kel would be equally sensible. She tore her attention away from the forest and knelt down next to Tony and Jean. Her hand hovered next to Jean's right side, not making contact.

"Four ribs broken. One presses on the lung."

"And I would like, please, not to have to think about it for the next ten minutes."

Kel touched her temple. "This is not a good idea," she said.

"We need a backup shooter, and I've had the most practice. Help me up."

Tony, still glowering, hoisted her to her feet. She unwrapped her good arm from his shoulders, and secured her balance by sheer force of will. Her first step brought her face-to-face with Clint.

He offered his bow. "Can you draw?"

"According to my Grade Nine art teacher, no, not at all."

"Harsh," Natasha said.

"Accurate."

" _Jean_. Can you draw?"

She took the bow, pulled back on the string — and promptly folded up with a moan of agony made so much worse by the way she tried to keep it from escaping her throat.

"Yeah, you're de-exempted," Clint said, and took the bow back from her. "I just re-empted you."

She stabbed a finger in Kel's approximate direction and gritted, "When I said I wanted _not to have to think about this_ —"

But Steve recognized his cue. He moved to her good side — Tony stepped back — and let her lean on him. Her muscles trembled and her breathing was quick and shallow. It was a miracle she hadn't passed out yet. Combat was out of the question.

(Like he wouldn't have been trying to do exactly the same thing. Like he didn't understand.)

"Jean," he said quietly.

She looked up at him. Her fist clenched in the fabric of his jacket.

They didn't speak another word. But it was a productive exchange even so.

"Get the injured into a tank," Steve said.

Tony took over from him, and Clint knelt to help Natasha, leaving Steve free to return to Sam.

He had a tremendous goose egg over his temple, and his eyes were still a little unfocused. "I can't believe I goddamn keeled over," he muttered.

"It looks like you got clobbered pretty good," Steve told him.

"I don't think that's the word for it."

"It's exactly the word for it. Can you stand?"

"Well, you're sure as hell not carrying me."

Steve helped him up, and they joined the procession that was headed for the closest of the enemy's abandoned tanks.

The hatch came open easily, revealing an unremarkable interior: benches, a steering yoke, other wooden levers and mechanisms that could have been the tank's weapons systems. Kel cut the line and hopped in first, and took a careful look around. Steve half-expected the tank to lurch to its many feet, but it continued to… sleep, or whatever. When there was no reaction to her intrusion, Kel gave the all-clear and jumped out again, and the rest of them loaded the wounded inside.

"Grenade count?" Steve asked as they jogged back onto the battlefield.

"We're good there," Clint said. "I've still got a dozen, and Jean should have about the same."

"All right. I'll take the second bow. Kel—"

But Kel, once again, had her attention focused elsewhere. This time she was staring fixedly in the direction that the enemy squadron had retreated.

"Are you all right?" Steve asked her.

She grimaced. "They run. I can still sense them. When the Geckos ambushed us at the garrison, I let the survivors run. It caused problems. So will this."

"We'll deal with them in due time, but right now we need you here. Are you with us?"

She was the only one of them not wearing a filter mask, since the nerve toxin saturating the area didn't bother her. She turned back to him, and Steve wasn't thrilled with the amused little smile on her face. "No weapon you have can get through kethysh skin. Don't waste the effort or the grenades. Throw or shoot straight down the mouth. The first one will be easy. The others won't. You take two, I'll take the third." Then she took off at top speed into the forest.

"Missing a link in your chain of command?" Tony suggested.

Steve glared. "Is there someplace else _you_ need to be?"

He raised his hands defensively. "No, not me. Just waiting on you to call the play."

Steve picked up the second bow. Jean had been practicing longer, but he was a decent shot and he wanted the range. It was a little awkward with the shield, however.

"Uh," Tony said, and reached out hesitantly. "You might need both hands. Temporary loan?"

He handed it over. "Don't try any trick shots. It's harder than it looks."

"Good advice."

Clint rolled his eyes heavily at this. "Any time now, Cap."

All right. "Spread out, but stay close to cover," he said. "Like Jean said, with a bit of luck, they'll be curious at first, not aggressive. Any shot at an open mouth, we take it as quickly as we can. Get ready to run interference for each other if necessary. Clear?"

"Crystal," Tony said, and pointed past him. "Also? Leopard."

Memory did strange things. Steve remembered being astonished at the size of the cat, but the intervening months had dulled the shock. It couldn't have been _that_ huge, could it? And his brain had edited accordingly.

It turned out, the cats really were that huge.

There were three of them, as Kel had predicted. Two came through shoulder to shoulder, while the third — smaller, perhaps younger — followed a few paces behind.

Some animal instinct dropped Steve into a crouch, and his team followed suit. The cats padded by, tails flicking idly. The lead one glanced Steve's way and gave a snort, but apparently the three humans weren't that interesting. Steve made a slow and careful gesture, and the team began to back off toward the closest tree.

The cats paid them no mind. The leading two zeroed in on the remains of a tent that had been struck by a grenade during the battle. With its massive claws, one of them picked through the wreckage, churning up grey, segmented pieces that were barely recognizable as Nyth remains.

Cat Two watched these proceedings intently. Cat Three, shut out and apparently bored, slunk around behind them a bit, then began to wander in the direction of the tanks — Steve took a sharp breath — but it drew back quickly, sneezing and pawing at its nose. The toxin surely wasn't strong enough to kill something of that size, but at least it was a deterrent.

Steve pointed, and Clint backed off and began to circle around to the other side of the battleground.

Cat One unearthed a dark green sphere about the size of a beach ball, and crouched down to sniff it with great interest. This had to be the source of whatever chemical signature had summoned the cats to this area. Cat Three, still at loose ends, began to snack on the more accessible Gecko corpses. Its path brought it alongside Cat Two, who gave it a warning hiss.

Three's ears flattened, and it hissed back.

Tempers flared. Two growled, loud as a chainsaw, and raised a warning paw. Three matched the move. More hissing and growling. Two threw a swat, fangs bared—

And Clint neatly put a grenade arrow into its opened mouth.

There was a muffled explosion, and the cat staggered back, coughing blood. Neutralized.

( _The first one will be easy_.)

One and Three both zeroed in on Clint. He backpedalled fast while Steve and Tony rushed forward.

"I'll draw the near one off," Steve said. "Try and get past it and help Clint."

"Got it."

He drew and fired. Three's paw slapped down impossibly fast and slammed the grenade into the ground. It didn't even flinch when the explosive went off.

But at least the cat's attention shifted. Steve loosed a quick barrage, too fast for Three to catch them all. Explosion after explosion sent it flinching backward with its eyes squeezed shut. Tony flung the shield up to cover his head and darted past.

Clint was trying the same trick on One, but it wasn't nearly as rattled. It was closing in fast, tracking Clint easily as he dodged from tree to tree. They were backing away and Tony angled to intercept, but it was too much distance to cover and he knew it. He shouted a challenge but the cat ignored him. It swatted down another grenade and lunged forward, and that was when Tony wound up and hurled the shield at its face.

The shield flew pretty well, which Steve already knew. It smacked One right in the nose, ricocheted harmlessly off, and vanished into the forest.

But One did turn its head to track the motion, and the distraction lasted just long enough for a length of webbing to materialize around Clint's midsection and yank him upward, hard and fast, into the trees.

One flexed its haunches and made an easy eighty-foot leap up the tree trunk. Its massive claws dug into the bark as it disappeared into the canopy.

And that would have to be Spider-Man's problem. Steve had two grenades left, and all he'd done to Three was make it angry.

Tony only hesitated a moment before reversing course and dashing back Steve's way. "Okay, this one's ours!" he called. "You got a shot left?"

"Two!" Steve shouted back. "You need to—"

"Already on it, hang on!"

Now Steve was the one in a desperate retreat. The cat's claws dug trenches in the dirt as it dodged around a tree. It had him in its sights. He turned and ran, and at the first touch of air on the back of his neck he flung himself hard left. The cat overshot him. He scrambled to his feet, arrow at the ready.

Tony was almost in position. The cat noticed. Its head turned, tracking him as he tried to circle around behind it.

Steve drew and fired, and the grenade tagged it just below the ear. It jerked back at the blast and shook its head angrily, and turned to glare at Steve. Tony was forgotten. It stalked forward, tail lashing—

And gave a sudden yowl of pain, and in the instant its mouth opened, Steve took the shot.

Direct hit.

Tony pulled his sword out of its back paw and fell back to a wary distance. The cat no longer cared. It was coughing blood.

A moment later, Cat One fell from the tree. It landed on its side with a terrible _whumph_ of dead weight. Kel bounced off its flank and tumbled across the ground.

The cat wasn't quite dead, but it was plainly damaged. It jerked its way to its feet, every move racked with spasms, and fled into the forest.

Clint and Spider-Man descended from the trees via webbing soon after, close to the edge of the battlefield where they'd all started, and the rest of the team converged on them.

"Dead soon," Kel said, with a gesture in the cat's direction.

"What did you—"

"She stuck some of that moss down its ear," Clint said with a grimace. "Poor bastard. Thanks, kid," he added to Peter. "And brace yourself — you're about to get screamed at."

Sure enough, Tony was bearing down on the kid like a thunderstorm. "You… are in _so much trouble_!"

He raised his hands defensively and started to backpedal. "Mr. Stark, this isn't what it looks like, I promise!"

"Really? You mean you _aren't_ here? This is just a cunning illusion?"

"Exactly! Or, okay, not _exactly_ exactly, but—"

Meanwhile, the crew in the tank had figured out that they were clear. They'd opened the hatch and were helping each other down.

Jean's eyes landed on Spider-Man.

He spun to face her. "Before you say anything, before you say anything! I didn't— I did not— I did _not_ —"

She walked right past him. " _Aaron_!"

Clint asked, "You're bellowing for the deaf guy?"

"He knows that I'm bellowing and he knows the reason."

Sure enough, Aaron appeared from behind a nearby tree. His expression, or what Steve could see of it above the filter mask, did not appear intimidated in the least as Jean advanced on him.

"See?" Peter said to Tony. "I promised I wouldn't leave Aaron alone. I gave my word. So when he decided to come here and see if anyone was too badly hurt to walk, I had to come, too. I didn't have a choice."

Tony took a minute to wrestle his anger back down. "To be continued," he growled. "Now why don't you make yourself useful and track down that shield for me?"

"Sure!" Peter fled.

Jean and Aaron started hashing out their differences in sign, a process made more difficult by Jean's injury. A particularly emphatic gesture left her curled up in pain, and Aaron paused his own argument to examine her side.

That seemed like an internal dispute. Steve decided to leave them to it and focus on the rest of the injured.

Sam still looked a little woozy. He looked around the battlefield, with its newly added giant jaguar corpses, and said, "I am really glad I can't smell any of this."

"I think we all are," Steve said.

"So the kid showed up after all."

"Yeah. Though Aaron's taking the blame for it."

"Brave guy."

Natasha, oddly, was walking away from the group. Steve and Sam followed, and caught up with her when she stopped to study the hatch of another tank.

"No scorch marks," she said.

"Sorry?"

"Jean fired a grenade at this hatch to keep some of the sentries from reaching it. See, on the ground? Scorch marks. But none on the wood."

Steve leaned in closer to the side of the tank, noting the strange, shallow grooves carved into it. He rapped it with his knuckles. The sound and texture were within the range that read as wooden to him, but the material was incredibly hard.

"The same kind of specially bred wood they used to build the suspension bridge?" he suggested.

"Could be," Natasha said.

"How are you doing?"

She lifted her arm to the side, revealing a bloody tear in her armor. "I tried to cut around the outside. A Gold-Tip took exception. Gave me a little jab between the ribs. This was just a warning shot. They needed us to stay put so they could draw out our backup. If they'd really been trying…"

Steve looked from her to Sam. "That good?"

"Yeah," Sam said. "That good."

And they'd let fifteen of them escape. Like Kel had said, that was going to cause problems later on. "Next time," he said, "we'll be ready for them."

"Sounded like they'll be ready for us, too."

"How did…" Steve glanced discreetly in Jean's direction.

Natasha asked, "You having second thoughts?"

"No, just… you were here, I wasn't."

Sam and Natasha traded glances, and she gave him a nod.

"It was her plan," Sam said, "and she ran it by the numbers. She got us in, and we got the job done. When those guys — what are we calling them, Gold-Tips? — when a pair of them found us, she had my back, no question."

"She took that hit to her side when she shot down the other fireball-squid," Natasha added, "and she still held it together through the rest of the melée. If it had just been the Geckos, we would have won. If the Gold-Tips hadn't predicted that we'd use poison, we would have won. Annoying, isn't it, when the bad guys are halfway competent?"

"Inconsiderate," Steve said.

He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting them to say. Obviously Jean hadn't screwed up. Obviously pitting seven against five hundred was always going to be risky. They'd all agreed to the plan in advance — there was nothing that Steve had wanted to do differently but been overruled on — and, for that matter, it had _worked_ : the enemy forces lay dead all around them.

But it still felt like they'd been beaten.

There was nothing more to be done that night, at least, except head back to the aid station. Steve got his shield back, and made a quick detour to pick up the explosives that he and Tony had collected and abandoned earlier that night, then rejoined the team en route.

Once they reached the cave, Aaron took charge. He and Spider-Man had set up two curtained shower stations nearby, and no one was allowed inside until they'd changed clothes and scrubbed themselves clean of the airborne toxin that had coated everything. The injured and the healers went first, of course, then the rest of them took their turn.

Once Steve was clean and dressed, he slipped into the cave, which had been strung with vine-lights and emptied of horses. Just to his right, Sam was lying down on a blanket while Aaron leaned over him with his hands to his temples. Beyond them, Jean lay on a second blanket with her shirt partially pulled up so that Kel could tend the vicious bruise that covered her side. Spider-Man, who flung himself into his newest role with the same enthusiasm as he flung himself into everything, directed the new arrivals to sit against the far wall, then went back to cleaning Natasha's stab wound. Clint eyeballed this arrangement dubiously, but Natasha waved him off with a flick of her fingers and an amused look.

Clint gave his head a bemused shake at this, but settled himself down in the waiting area as indicated. "So," he said. "New guy. Didn't like him."

"No, that guy sucked," said Sam.

"That guy needs a name. A crappy name. Like 'Humperdinck'."

(Yes, Steve understood the reference.)

Tony looked over. "Your go-to is _The Princess Bride_?"

"You got a problem with _The Princess Bride_ , Stark?"

"No, no problem. It just doesn't exactly roll off the tongue."

"Humphrey," Jean said. "His name is Humphrey."

Tony asked, "Kel, do you know anything about these guys? The ones with the…" He drew his fingers out to a point like he was tracing the tip of a horn.

"A little, yes," she replied. "Those ones were trained on j'Brenn. Not by my clan — we don't need the payment — but sometimes a smaller one will sell a service like this." She swapped into her own language for some sentences that didn't sound complimentary. "They have some skill. Not like one of us, but…"

"But more than enough to make our lives unpleasant," Jean said. "I don't recall inviting Humphrey to our briefing sessions, and yet there he was with our entire plan."

"In a lot of ways, you're doing the only thing you can do," Natasha told her. "That inevitably makes it a bit predictable. Don't let him manipulate you into second-guessing yourself."

She nodded. But it was clear that she, too, was viewing the night as a defeat.

 

* * *

 

Jean wanted to start the trip back to camp as soon as everyone's injuries were under control, which wasn't a surprise. She stepped out of the cave while the rest of them were packing up, which also wasn't a surprise.

Tony gave her a couple minutes of privacy. Then he followed.

He found her leaning against a tree, staring up at the sky, still looking queasy. She'd kicked some dirt over the spot where she'd thrown up.

Explanations weren't required, and neither were platitudes. She'd killed five hundred, and now she had to live with it. Words weren't going to help.

Tony silently passed her his water. She rinsed and spat, then took a long drink, then handed it back.

"I'd hoped that this would eventually get easier," she said.

He came alongside her — the tree was plenty broad enough for two to lean on — and matched her pose. "Maybe it's not supposed to."

"And yet I'm the only one reacting this way."

Yeah. He'd thought about that. "Kel's been preparing you for war since, what, a year before the portals?"

"Something like that."

"And really, you were thinking about the camp takeover, right? Dozens, not hundreds?"

"Mostly, yes, though we knew that escalation was a risk."

"Well. Got you beat. I've had a war living in my brain since the New York invasion."

The one constant in his life — ever since he'd passed through that portal, the _first_ portal, and seen the enemy army poised to descend on Earth and pick it clean — was that _this was going to happen again_. He'd lived with it ( _nearly died with it_ ), dreamed it, imagined it. Run a thousand different scenarios. Envisioned the weapons he would need to fight it, rewritten science when science refused to keep up with him.

He hadn't expected swords and spears, or the alien planet, or the giant leopards. But he had expected war. Any qualms he might have once had over doing whatever it took to win had long since burned away.

"Turns out," he said, "somewhere past the far end of screaming desperation is a kind of… numbness. Trust me, you don't want to be messed up enough not to feel anything right now."

Tony could see the reflexive response — _You're not messed up_ — cross her mind and depart unspoken, for which he was grateful.

Instead, she said, "The worst part is that I'm not even convinced we accomplished anything."

He looked at her sharply. "What are you talking about? We _won_. Granted, maybe it was more of a judge's decision than a knockout, but we took this round. You cut their army in half in one night."

"And they will never give us the opportunity again."

"We don't need them to give us opportunities. _Hey_." He took her gently by the arm and guided her around to face him. "Romanoff was right — this guy has you rattled, doesn't he?"

She glanced down at his hand, eyebrows raised, and if he hadn't known her quite as well as he did, he would have backed off.

"Yeah, I remember," Tony said instead. "Not unless you're about to fall off a cliff. I think this counts."

The guffaw sort of burst out of her. She gathered his encroaching hand in both of hers and clasped it fondly. "You're right, I am… overwhelmed and frightened and my ego is stung. But focusing on those things accomplishes nothing. So instead I will try to take the victory for what it is, and move forward. And I appreciate you checking up on me."

"What are friends for?"

(This was another part that he hadn't expected, or at least that he'd stopped expecting somewhere along the line — friends to fight beside him. But he had them, and he was going to make damned sure Jean knew that she did, too.)

Then she looked up and asked the overhead foliage, "Are you enjoying yourself?"

A pause. A thud. Tony groaned and turned to face the source of the noise.

"Hi, guys," Peter said, walking sheepishly out of the shadows. "Um. I wasn't listening or anything, it's just that you were out here by yourselves and I wanted to make sure there were no chimpanzees or whatever."

"And?"

"Nope. All good. So I'll just—"

"Peter," Jean said, "is there something you want to talk about?"

"No! No. Not really." When this failed to impress, the kid sighed and said, "I mean, maybe I wanted to know if you were talking about me."

"You mean in the sense of how much trouble you're in?" Tony suggested. " _Eleven_. Sentence suspended due to the involvement of external influences. By the way," he added to Jean, "are all your people this bad at staying away from danger?"

"They choose to spend time with me."

"Fair point."

"C'mon, I helped, didn't I?" Peter protested.

"Yes, you did," Jean told him. "You stayed with Aaron, which is exactly what you were supposed to do. I assume that Kel found you and recruited you to her half of the plan?"

"Yeah."

"From what I hear, it would have been a lot harder without your help. And I think," she went on, annoyingly, "that Tony isn't nearly as upset with you as he's pretending to be."

Tony glowered. She absorbed it calmly.

"Yeah, fine," he sighed. He wasn't actually mad at the kid so much as he was mad at Aaron for enabling him. "Given the circumstances, you did the right thing."

Peter, luckily, didn't let this go to his head. He gave a relieved sort of nod, and said, "Okay. Thanks. And Jean? I don't think you're a worse person for doing… all the stuff you did tonight. If that helps any."

Jean paused a moment. "Alarmingly enough, it does."

Someone behind him cleared their throat. Tony turned and found Barton waiting a short distance away.

"Stark," he said.

"Barton."

"That was a god-awful throw back there. But it worked. Thanks."

With some effort, Tony rejected a few less gracious responses and replied, "Sure."

"Anyway." Barton turned to Jean. "We're packed and ready whenever you are."

"Thank you. We're right behind you."

In fact, the horses were still being saddled and loaded when the four of them rejoined the group. The vine-lights lay in a loose tangle to one side; they'd been doused, but the glow hadn't completely faded yet. By their light, Tony located his stuff — he had nothing to pack, because he hadn't unpacked — and headed that way. Peter went to help Aaron, who was strapping some saddlebags onto a Non-George. But Jean just paused on the sidelines.

"Peter, did any of the Mjentur see you?" she asked.

"No way," he said.

"You're certain?"

"Yeah, absolutely! I stayed way back with Aaron, out of sight. Kel only found me because… you know."

"Yes. So they don't know about you. And more to the point, they don't know that there's anything _to_ know." She began to pace slowly across the mouth of the cave. "We were surrounded. They had us at their mercy. From their point of view, I had no reason to hold anything in reserve. Somehow I doubt that 'incredibly powerful teenager toward whom the rest of us are taking a custodial attitude' is a scenario that would occur to them."

Tony wasn't sure exactly what was going on yet, but he couldn't miss the shift in attitude. Something was happening. One by one, the rest of the team left off what they were doing and refocused on Jean.

"What are you getting at?" Steve asked.

"I don't know yet," she said. Just as quickly as the pacing began, it stopped again. She turned to face him squarely. "Steve — you're Humphrey."

"Hell of a disguise," said Sam.

"You know that you'll need numbers to get through whatever we've got at the beta site. Your next move has to be to head north and take command of the remaining forces, yes?"

"Agreed."

"And you can't show up alone. Misplacing your squadron is embarrassing and fails to make your point. So you take most of your people with you."

He nodded again.

"As long as we have Kel, we can't be ambushed. We had some injuries, yes, but we've still got enough muscle to match a small attack force. So I don't think you send anyone to harass us directly. What does that leave?"

Steve folded his arms. "My team is fresh. We can probably move a lot faster than yours. Fast enough to get ahead of you and leave traps in your path."

"Yes. And?"

His posture stiffened as realization struck. "The camp."

"Exactly."

" _Shit_ ," Barton said. "They could trash our food supply, armory, livestock…"

"Exactly," Jean said again.

"We could have Vision guarding it," Natasha said.

Jean shook her head. "They think they can neutralize Vision. This target is worth the risk. Plus it's a reasonable bet that I have him surveilling the other half of the army, which happens to be true. I don't know what I was thinking."

Natasha replied, without condemnation, "You were thinking that tonight would be a clean sweep."

"All right," she said wryly, "I do know what I was thinking. I was wrong. Let's hope that mistake hasn't killed us."

Tony said, "Maybe their team can outpace ours, but we can still bet on Kel moving even faster, right? Since we know what they're doing, we just have to send her out to take care of it."

"Yes." Jean turned to Steve again. "That is the obvious conclusion. But I wonder if it isn't a little too obvious."

"A backup team," Steve said.

"I think so. Two teams of two. One to get out in front of us, the other to head for the camp at top speed. Maybe I'm nervous enough to keep Kel with us, in which case we risk walking into traps. Or maybe I take the more aggressive angle and send her out on a wide patrol. She discovers and destroys the first team and I congratulate myself on my perspicacity, leaving the second team free to complete their mission."

"What's your countermove?" he asked her.

"Kel, at their absolute top speed, how quickly could two of Humphrey's people get there?"

"With a stimulant, if they don't expect to live much longer anyway?" She pursed her lips. "Run tonight and tomorrow. Arrive after noon, before evening. Not sooner."

"Could you beat that? And still expect to live a while longer?"

"Yes."

"Then do it."

"It leaves the first team still ahead of you," Kel said. "I won't have time to do both."

"I know," said Jean. "And what Humphrey doesn't know is that we don't have one long-distance tracker — we have two. Peter?"

The kid snapped to something like attention. "Yes!"

(Tony was suddenly not liking this at all.)

"I need you to be very honest with me," Jean said. "Could you find a team of two Mjentur before they cut in front of us, and shadow them from the trees without being observed?"

"Yes! I can absolutely do that. No problem."

She took a few slow paces forward. "Please listen carefully. This is not about ego, or impressing anyone. This is about all of our lives. We can't move at speed if every upcoming hill might be a minefield. I need someone to keep tabs on them and tell me where they set their traps, without ever raising their suspicions. So let me ask again: can you locate and track an alert, experienced team while remaining undetected?"

At least this time he seemed to take the question seriously. "Do you remember, back before the wagons, when Kel and I would go on those trips outside the barrier?" he asked. "A lot of what we did was these tracking games. She would get a head start and I would have to find her without leaving any traces. When you have a person on two feet, it sounds completely different from any of the animals. You just have to listen a certain way. And I can stay way up in the trees. There's lots of things that like to jump from branch to branch. I can do it so it doesn't sound suspicious."

Jean looked at Kel, who said, "He learned quickly. Good instincts. I say yes."

She turned again. "Tony?"

Once more he found himself glowering at her. "I was wondering if you were going to get to me."

She didn't try to wheedle or cajole. She didn't say another word, in fact. She'd already made her case with the logic she'd laid out.

_Keep the kid with us, and let Steve do his landmine-sniffing trick_. But that would slow them down, and it was riskier. Peter was uniquely qualified for this job and they all knew it.

Tony leveled a finger in Peter's direction. "If you engage with these guys, I will personally staple your ankles to your elbows."

"I don't… actually think you could do that."

" _Watch me_."

"That was a 'yes', though, right?"

Tony hated this planet so much. "It was a 'yes'."

"Find them, and stay with them until they stop to set their first trap," Jean told him. "My guess is that they'll go for distance initially, and that the first place they mine will be the hill that leads up to the plateau. But I could be wrong. Don't tamper with any of the devices — that's our job. Just let us know where they are."

"Got it. No problem."

Sam asked, "And the rest of us?"

"We push the pace as hard as we can," Jean said. "It's been a long day and I'm sorry, but—"

"Don't worry about it," he said quickly. "None of us want to prolong this camping trip any longer than we have to. Could be rough on the horses, though."

"Understood. I'll keep an eye on them. Anything else?" She looked around the group, but didn't get any takers.

It was a good plan. It was a _plan_ , not a retreat, and that was important.

"Then let's move out," Jean said. "Oh — Kel, one last thing. Save me one. I want to have words."

 

* * *

 

They marched. Sam and Jean, still shaking off the worst of their injuries, pressed on with grim determination. Natasha, too, was feeling fatigue from the earlier battle and her minor stabbing, but she was nowhere near as exhausted as they had to be.

Aaron had long since fallen asleep on George's back.

Without a road, the horses were useful for carrying baggage and sleepy empaths, but they travelled no faster than a slow walking pace. Jean was chafing at the restriction, and seemed determined to make up for it by marching them all into the ground.

They walked, then rested, then walked, all through the night until the sun began to rise. The soldiers — Sam, Clint, Steve — knew how to get snatches of sleep whenever it was offered. The horses, well-trained creatures that they were, also got the hang of the pace and dozed every time they were allowed to stop.

Tony didn't sleep, and neither did Jean.

An interesting choice. But Tony wouldn't be in the talking mood as long as he was worried about Peter. Natasha settled down next to Jean.

"You should try and rest," she said.

Jean gave a slight shrug. "Someone has to keep watch."

Natasha followed her sightline. "Well, you've certainly got that one particular twig covered." This was not met with any signs of amusement, because Natasha was unappreciated in her time. When Jean didn't offer her own conversational attempt, she added, "It was a bold move, putting Peter in the field."

"For 'bold', should I read 'reckless'?"

"No, you should read 'bold'. For a while there, I was afraid Humphrey'd knocked you off your game."

She gave a quiet hum. "The problem with this game is that I don't know all the rules. They have a plan for Vision, and I don't know what it is."

"They _think_ they have a plan for Vision."

"No, it's more than that. Something we haven't seen yet. Something big." She closed her eyes and leaned her head back. "We're about three miles from the start of the slope that leads back up to the plateau. It's an obvious bottleneck. I expect Peter to arrive within the hour to tell us that our friends up ahead of us are setting mines. They haven't been tracked down and killed yet, so they probably think we're taking the more conservative tack of keeping Kel close by. That means they'll try to stay at least two miles ahead of us, more if they can manage it. I propose that we don't let them manage it."

"What do you have in mind?"

Jean met her eyes and gave a slight smile. "How do you feel about a brisk three-mile run, followed immediately by personal combat?"

But Natasha wasn't Spider-Man, happy to jump into the fray at the first hint of an opportunity. "How much of this is good tactics and how much is bruised ego?"

"About twenty percent the former, eighty percent the latter. You up for it?"

Honest, at least. "I am, but are you? You've been awake for twenty-four hours and counting, and you were bleeding internally not so long ago."

"I'm exhausted, yes," Jean said. "But I can arrange to be temporarily un-exhausted. Do you remember these?"

She pulled from her pocket a couple of thin green strips, lined up side by side like twist ties.

Natasha did remember, in fact. "Is that a good idea?"

"As a matter of habit? Not at all. And I'll pay for it afterward. But as an isolated event, I think the reward outweighs the risk."

Tony could hardly have failed to notice all the whispering. His curiosity finally overcame his current discomfort with Natasha, and he crept over to join them. "What are you two plotting?"

Jean said, "If you can stay here and keep watch for a while, Natasha and I are going to clear out the pair ahead of us."

Tony eyeballed the stimulant strips in her hand. "Wow, that looks like a terrible idea." With a glare, he asked Natasha, "Are you onboard with this?"

"Getting there," she said.

"And you didn't mention this part of the plan earlier because…"

"We needed time to catch up, and the hill is the first place I could guarantee they would be," Jean said.

Tony groaned and scrubbed his face with his hands. He looked every bit as exhausted as Jean did. "Okay, then I should come with you."

"No, you need to stay here and keep watch, and let the others know where we went."

"Jean…"

"If we go now, we'll run into Peter on his way back. I'll send him your way so you have some backup. We'll finish the team in front of us and wait for you to catch up."

Natasha had to point out, "Strictly speaking, I haven't agreed yet."

Jean asked, "Is there a flaw in my analysis?"

Of where the enemy was and what they were doing? Probably not. But those weren't the only facts in play.

"That depends," Natasha said. "Tell me why it has to be you, and why it has to be right now."

Jean breathed out slowly. She understood the question. "I leaned too hard on the idea that we would be underestimated," she said softly. "We got slapped down for it, and we're damned lucky that it was only a slap. I made a mistake. And now I need to know…" She broke off and gave a rueful chuckle. "I need to _feel_ that I can still trust my instincts. There are two of them. They're approaching the hill. That's where they're going to lay their first set of traps. I can feel it. And I need to know if I'm right."

Natasha caught Tony's eye. She'd just run out of counterarguments.

Tony also yielded to the inevitable. "I only caught the tail end of the action, but those guys — the Gold-Tips? They were good." He gestured back and forth between them. "Just watch each other's backs, all right?"

"Of course," said Natasha.

They were all filthy. The mandatory showers back at the aid station had helped a little, but the subsequent night's worth of marching had left them covered in sweat and grime again. Jean spat on her wrist and wiped a spot clean, then applied the strip.

Natasha declined when Jean offered one to her. She wasn't particularly close to her limits yet.

"You're going to hate yourself in a few hours," Tony noted.

"I'm aware," Jean said. She already looked more alert.

"Good luck."

Natasha and Jean collected their weapons, and then they ran.

The ground was uneven, and the dawn light was barely strong enough to filter through the treetops. They pushed the pace as hard as they dared. After the many hours of plodding they'd endured, it felt lovely to stretch.

They were within half a mile of the hillside when Natasha heard the rustling overhead. She tapped Jean's arm, and they both pulled up short just as Peter dropped to the ground in front of them.

"Hi!" he said. "I was just on my way back. Is something wrong?"

"No, nothing's wrong," said Jean. She paused to take a drink of water and wipe the sweat from her brow. "Were you about to tell us that there are two Mjentur ahead of us, and they've started laying traps at the base of the slope?"

Peter blinked. "Uh… yeah. That's it exactly. How did you…?"

"Good work," she told him. "The rest of the group is a couple miles behind us. Join up with them, and lead them our way once they're rested a bit more. Natasha and I will wait for you."

He looked over his shoulder, uncertain. "Are you sure you don't want me to stay with you?"

"No, we're fine. They need the backup more than we do."

The trees thinned out before the hill began. Natasha and Jean covered the rest of the distance quietly, and crouched in the underbrush as close to the slope as they could get without being seen.

Two Mjentur. Jean had called it. They were about a quarter of the way up the hill, in the process of stringing a tripwire.

"Any thoughts on how you want to play this?" Natasha asked.

"Two against two, no cover?" Jean shrugged. "I say a head-on charge."

"Sounds fun." She drew her sword. "Let's go."

 

* * *

 

Steve's heart nearly goddamn stopped when he saw the bodies.

Jean and Natasha were both lying on the hill, their weapons discarded beside them. A little further up were two Gold-Tip corpses and clear signs of an explosion.

But then Jean turned her head toward Natasha and laughed, and Steve realized that they weren't dead — they were sunbathing.

He'd been furious ever since he'd woken up to find the two of them gone. Tony had started to fumble his way through some kind of story about instincts, but he'd abandoned it when it clearly hadn't been working and said instead, "It was just something she needed to do."

_Informing the rest of her team_ was something Jean needed to do, and yet it had somehow fallen off her agenda.

He stormed his way up the hill and stood over them, deliberately blocking the sun.

Jean opened one eye. "Good morning, Captain Rogers. How are you today?"

"I've been better," he told her.

"How interesting. I would attempt to commiserate, but it's _possible_ that I'm a touch unfocused at the moment."

"She took a stimulant," Natasha said, "and she's due to crash any second now. Sorry, Steve, but the lecture's going to have to wait a few hours."

Jean giggled at nothing in particular, and Steve threw his arms up in surrender.

"Do you feel better, at least?" he asked her.

"Yes, I do," Jean said with abrupt solemnity. "Natasha? How do you feel?"

"I'm good, thanks."

Steve sighed, and pointed uphill at the battlefield. "This was reckless."

" _Bold_ , Steve. We're calling it bold."

 

* * *

 

Jean wasn't the only one who needed a nap that morning. Everyone, human and horse alike, was drained from the hard overnight march. Even the kid was pushing his limits. The team climbed the hill and made camp at the top, and stayed put until midafternoon.

Once they were across the river and back on the road, the travel got a little easier. Tony badly wanted this trip to be over with, and the rest of the team seemed to feel the same way. They pressed on through the evening and into the night, crossing the barrier line well after midnight.

Kel was there to meet them when they finally reached the camp.  In anticipation of their arrival, she'd activated the outdoor lights around the town square.

"Any problems?" Jean asked.

"No," she said. "There were only two, like you said. One left now."

"Show me."

It had been well over a year, but Tony remembered the fucking prison cell vividly. Kel and Jean unbarred the door, then Kel dragged out her prisoner.

(It almost looked funny, given that she was half his size. But anyone who understood the kind of control that she could exert through her skin knew that it wasn't funny at all.)

She dropped the Gold-Tip to his knees on the grass in front of Jean. He'd been stripped of weapons and armor, leaving him in only a simple tunic and trousers. The rest of the team spread out around him, weapons at the ready.

Jean asked, "Does he understand me?"

The response was a string of furious but otherwise incomprehensible syllables.

Sam said, "Guess only the boss gets the custom translator."

"He says he won't answer your questions," Kel said. "And I'm not sure how to put this part in Human, but he says you should put your—"

"Let's not worry about the details," Jean interjected. "Can you translate for me?"

Kel nodded.

Jean took a step forward and said to the prisoner, calmly and clearly, "Tell your boss it didn't work. Tell him I saw him coming. Go. Run."

Tony knew better than to look at Jean in surprise. They all did. But he hadn't expected that, and he was pretty sure he wasn't the only one.

Kel translated. The Mino's eyes darted from Jean to her and back.

"Run," Jean said again.

This prompted another monologue, but Jean made a slashing motion at her throat. "I don't care about any of that. This is your last chance. Run, or die."

Kel translated.

The Mino shut up. Took stock of his options. And ran.

"Do you want me to follow?" Kel asked.

"At a distance," said Jean, "and just to the barrier. He knows there's nothing else he can do. Everyone else — let's clean up and get some rest. We've earned it. We'll start planning our next move once Vision returns with a report from the north."

The group began to split up, but Tony stuck close to Jean. Quietly, he said, "I realize this isn't the best time to ask, but are you sure about…" He jerked his chin in the direction that the Gold-Tip had fled.

"I'm sure," she replied. "I want Humphrey thinking about all the things I know that he doesn't. Let him sweat over my next move for a while." She shot him a tight, satisfied smile. " _Now_ we won this round."

 


	46. Chapter 46

Showers and medical checks happened, then blessed sleep.

Tony woke up the next morning (well, probably not _morning_ , as such), rolled out of his cot in his empty dorm, and stumbled on auto-pilot toward the kitchen until he remembered that all the support staff had been evacuated.

Nevertheless, he could smell coffee brewing, so he continued that way. Inside the kitchen, he found Aaron and Barton working on a small-scale breakfast operation.

"Good morning, Tony," Aaron said cheerfully.

Tony's signed response was a bit less chipper. Aaron was the one who'd brought the kid along to the combat zone, and even though it had basically turned out all right, he was still miffed.

Aaron, not put off in the least, handed Tony a bowl of mush, accompanied by a spoon and a smile. Tony moved on to Clint, who was guarding the coffee.

"Stark."

"Barton."

He escaped with his coffee, his mush, and his life, and took a seat at his usual table. As he began the process of resigning himself to his breakfast, motion on the perimeter caught his eye, and he looked up to spot Sam and Steve out for a jog. Because what they _definitely_ needed that morning was more exercise.

Whatever. Tony struck the two of them off his mental checklist. The kid was probably still sleeping it off. So was Jean, if she had any sense. Natasha was an enigma, and Kel didn't eat. For the time being, he was alone.

Then again, maybe not.

"This seat taken?"

Barton sat down across from him before Tony could respond.

"Guess it is now," he muttered.

Barton had his own breakfast with him. He took slug of coffee, then asked, "So what's your problem with Nat?"

"Oh. This is _that_ kind of sit-down." As if Tony was going to get into the details with Barton of all people. He took his own drink of coffee and replied, "It's personal."

"How fucking personal could it be?"

"Personal to the extent that it's none of your damned business, that's how. Why — are you here to fight in her name?"

"Nah. Nat can win her own battles. But if she has to kick your ass, I'll be there to watch."

"Delightful. Can't wait."

They both turned their attention to their miserable food.

A few mouthfuls later, Barton said, "Did you think this was going to be some kind of reconciliation moment?"

"Stranger things have happened." Tony paused to assess the evidence. "Not a lot of them, granted. Maybe the fireball-squid."

That actually elicited something like a chuckle.

This, frankly, was not a relationship that Tony had spent a lot of brainpower on. Barton wanted to blame him personally for everything that had gone to shit in his life? Fine. He only had about a thousand more pressing issues. But he wasn't sure what to make of the fact that the guy was just… sitting there across from him, not even really glaring anymore.

"Tell you what, let's skip to the end," he said. "Is there anything salvageable here, or should we just leave it?"

Barton shot him a skeptical eyebrow. "You want to do this now?"

"I'm not busy. You busy?"

He contemplated his half-empty coffee cup for a few beats, then gave a quick nod. "I didn't know Banner that well. We weren't what you'd call friends. But at least I listened to the stuff he said. I guess you couldn't be bothered."

"Meaning what?"

"Thaddeus Ross? _That's_ the guy you cut a deal with? That's the guy whose side you take over _us_? Bruce told you who he is. He warned us years ago. Ross doesn't give a shit about international law, collateral damage, _anything_ , except putting every enhanced in a cage or on a leash. And you invited him in through the front door. What the fuck were you thinking?"

"I was thinking that if I didn't invite him in, he'd kick the door down," Tony shot back. "I was _thinking_ that if it hadn't been _us_ bringing you in, it would have been a bunch of guys wearing their caps backwards, taking headshots from half a mile away. Not wanting to see the whole team _dead_ is, approximately, what I was thinking. That answer your question?"

Barton scoffed. "Half a mile? Amateur hour."

"Right, because that is definitely the most pertinent detail."

"We could have handled it."

"Are you that desperate to go to war with the entire world?" Tony asked. "Though of course that's where it ended up anyway. Congratulations, I suppose."

"Whatever."

They sullenly returned to their breakfasts for a while.

Eventually, Barton said, "You think it would have gone south that fast?"

"Ross told me straight out," Tony said. "I had to beg for thirty-six hours. All but on my knees. I'm surprised Natasha didn't tell you."

"We didn't rehash what happened." He knocked back the last of his coffee. "I'll give you this: I wouldn't have figured you could hold it together in captivity this long."

"That a fact."

"Yeah. I mean…" He dripped some mush off his spoon. "This is bleak."

"You're not wrong."

"And the forced labor. The no-talking business."

"The torture wasn't a walk in the park, either," Tony said.

Barton looked up quickly enough that Tony was pretty sure he'd been taken by surprise. "We heard about what happened to Jean. Was that—"

"Same deal, yeah."

He chewed that over for a bit. "Fair enough."

The silence that time was a bit less antagonistic.

(Barton had… maybe some tiny fraction of a point. If it hadn't been for Jean and Kel, Tony wasn't sure how long he would have been able to keep from getting himself killed.)

He didn't spend a lot of time thinking about the early days. No point, especially now that the end was finally in sight. But the memories had been summoned, and — annoyingly — a few of them weren't sitting well.

"That first night, I made a cheap crack about your family," Tony said quietly. "That was out of line. Retracted; apologies."

Barton eyeballed him. "Wow. Didn't know you knew how to apologize."

"Wow. Didn't know you knew me well enough to make that call."

"Got me there."

They'd both finished eating. The logical next step was to go their separate ways. But they stayed put, gazing into their empty bowls.

"Before all this kicked off, me and Nat were on the run," Clint said. "Obviously it was a hell of a lot better than secret ocean prison. But the thought of… of that being _it_ …"

Tony nodded.

"We knew the risks. But frankly, we were banking on having 'saved the world from Evil Winter Soldier squadron' to counterbalance all the Accords bullshit. When it didn't go down that way, thanks to you—"

"And thanks to 'Evil Winter Soldier squadron' never actually being the plan?"

"Well, if you want to split hairs…"

In response to his glare, Barton quirked his mouth for just a second. Asshole.

"Anyway. The point is that my life is well and truly fucked, and when and if we get back, I don't have a damned clue what I'm gonna do about it."

Tony stared hard at his spoon while his fingers worked at a rough spot on the handle. This directness stuff was still not unlike having his skin peeled off with a butter knife. "I understand what you all thought you were fighting for," he said. "At least, I understand it now. After Berlin… the truth is, I probably wouldn't have given your side a fair hearing even if you'd tried a little harder to explain it. If Zemo's master plan had been just a hair less Byzantine, you would have been vindicated. And I don't know either how all this mess is going to be fixed. But there's got to be a way. The world still needs the Avengers. And you all deserve better."

Silence fell for a bit, until Barton gave a quick nod and said, "All right."

Tony's eyebrows went up. "That's it? 'All right'?"

"No, that's not _it_ ," he retorted. "I'm still pissed at you, just… less."

He met Tony's glare with a smirk, and suddenly they were both chuckling.

Shortly thereafter, Sam and Steve finished the last of their laps. They cut through the town square and took their turn in the kitchen. Steve emerged with two cups of coffee and went next door to the admin building, which told Tony that Jean was in her office instead of sleeping like a sensible person. (Why he was even surprised…) Sam joined the fun conversations table.

"Hey," Sam said, and sat down next to Tony. "Everybody getting along?"

"Yeah, we're great," Barton said. "Had a whole conversation, didn't punch each other once. How's your head?"

Sam rubbed his temple. "Still a little sore, but Aaron looked it over again this morning and didn't find any neurological damage. Anyone remember how we managed without empaths around?"

"I distantly recall more bandages and a lot more stress," Tony said.

"Sounds about right," said Sam. "So, Tony, are you gonna start training with us, or what?"

He groaned. "Wilson, I just hiked halfway across the damned continent. I am tired and sore and I do _not_ want to talk about workouts right now."

"He's got a point, Stark," said Barton, who didn't listen too well. "If we're lucky, we've got a couple weeks before the next major piece of action. Enough time to figure out some group tactics."

The team training business was one of the things he hadn't sorted out yet. The problem wasn't Barton or Romanoff. It was, still, Steve. "Yeah. I'll think about it."

 

* * *

 

Jean's office door was ajar, and Steve sidled in. She was sitting at her desk, of course, and looked up at his arrival.

"Morning," Steve said. "I would have knocked, but…" He gestured with the coffee cups both hands.

"Hi, Steve." She smiled when he set her cup down. "Thank you."

Her maps were spread out over the desk and much of the floor, just like they'd been before the mission. What had her attention, though, were a few sheets of paper that she'd filled with illegible writing.

"What are you working on?" Steve asked.

"Ah." She collected the sheets into a pile. Her manner seemed almost sheepish. "I wrote some notes about what happened on the mission. Not in a particularly formal manner, just… sorting through some thoughts." She set the pages aside and leaned back in her chair. "I can guess what this is about. We never finished discussing the pair of Gold-Tips on the hill."

"No. You were a bit unfocused at the time."

"And now I suppose I must pay for it." Jean took a mouthful of coffee. "I assume you're going to tell me that leaving without telling you was irresponsible, and facing the enemy team two-on-two was reckless."

"I thought we were calling it bold."

"No, it was reckless."

"Are you planning to do my entire side of the conversation?"

She gestured for him to go ahead.

"Obviously I don't need to explain what the problem is," Steve said. "I'd like to understand why it happened."

Jean reached over to her stack of pages again and straightened up the edges before she responded. "I got outplayed," she said. "I had something to prove. I needed to test myself against them directly. To feel that I'd taken control again. It _was_ reckless. And if it had been too reckless… frankly, I would have had an easier time hearing that from Natasha than from you."

Now _that_ took him by surprise. Stung, he said, "I thought we had a rapport out there. Was I wrong?"

"No, you weren't wrong."

"But you couldn't talk to me?"

Jean threw her hands up. "For pity's sake, you're _Captain America_. It's intimidating as _hell_ , Steve."

His face went hot, and he looked away. Jean had almost always approached him on the level of _Steve_ rather than _Captain America_. It was one of the things he'd appreciated most about her. Now it felt like he'd been sucker-punched.

"I didn't think you were intimidated by anything," he said.

"My secret's out, I suppose." She pushed back from her desk and slowly walked across the room, stopping in front of the map of the camp that hung on the opposite wall. "I didn't realize a lot of this explicitly at the time. Like I said, I had to sort through some things. But I think the confrontation with Humphrey really drove home for the first time the… _stunning_ arrogance of what I'm doing. Telling _you_ of all people that I can run your team as well as you can. You're giving me this opportunity and I appreciate it, but you can also take it back from me whenever you please. I found I couldn't cope with that uncertainty while I was also feeling overmatched by the enemy. That's why I had to confront them myself, and it's why I didn't loop you in." She turned away from the map and gave him a wry smile. "I'm not terribly proud of it, but that's what happened."

It was Steve's turn to pace away. Inasmuch as he'd had any expectations, he'd guessed that Jean would remind him that she was in charge and didn't have to run her plans by him at all. Then hopefully she would have apologized for scaring the hell out of him, and that would have been that.

Apparently they'd both misjudged the other by a wide margin.

He started from the issue that was easiest to untangle. "If you'd run your plan by me, I wouldn't have vetoed it," he said. "I would have tried to convince you to take a third person. Then again, Natasha does count for more than her fair share of people."

Jean gave a chuckle.

"But I guess that's not the real point. I'm not looking for a reason to take over from you." His eyes dropped to her side for a second, and he had to add, "Except temporarily, if you become too injured to function."

She winced. "Yes, that was ill-considered."

"How is it today?"

"Bruised and stiff, but healing."

"Good." Steve started making his way to her side of the room. "You don't have to defend your position from me, and I hope I haven't done anything to make you think—"

"No, nothing like that," she said quickly. "It's just that this is new for me."

"It's new for both of us." He came to rest against the same wall that she was leaning on. "I know you have a lot more history with Tony. I admire how easy it is between you."

"It wasn't easy to get there."

"Maybe this won't be easy, either. But if it helps, I trust your judgment, and I want you to believe that you can trust me to back you up."

Jean's smile was understated, but no less warm and sincere for it. "Thank you, Steve. That means a lot to me. And I'm sorry that I didn't talk to you before."

She hadn't needed to allow him to see so deeply into her internal conflict. It had been a risk, knowing that if he _had_  been looking for a reason to oust her, she'd just handed him one.

Steve found that he wanted to reply in kind.

"You know, I understand what you were saying about testing yourself," he said. "When Sam and Tony and I destroyed the outpost, the two of them infiltrated the facility to set off the failsafe, and I waited outside the perimeter in case of survivors. No one made it out, but there was a squadron of four Mjentur in the area. Of course they came running to investigate the blast."

He paused. He could still put himself back in that moment: night vision all but gone from the flash of fire, his palm sweaty on the hilt of his sword, dirt crunching beneath his boots. And there had been no conscious thought at all, save for the certainty that this was what he had to do. Or— no. This was what he was _going_ to do. Not a choice so much as a predetermined outcome.

"I could have waited to see if they split up, then tried to take at least a few of them by surprise," Steve said. "But instead I stepped right out into the middle of them. That's why I almost didn't make it back. And it wasn't until a lot later that I figured out that I was giving myself an ultimatum: either I was still useful in this body, or else…" He tried to make his shrug look casual. "At least you took backup."

Jean reached out and laid a gentle hand on his arm. "Perhaps we'll both of us try not to do things like that again."

"That's probably best."

They both took a breath. In the space of a look and a nod, they reached the mutual decision to move on.

"I believe tradition dictates that we hold a team debriefing session," Jean said.

"That is SOP," said Steve. "But you're allowed to have breakfast first."

"After twenty-seven months of the food in this place, I am not nearly as enticed by that prospect as you might imagine." But she got her coffee and started for the door anyway.

Steve fell in beside her. "By the way — sending Humphrey's man back to him?"

"Let me guess — bold?"

"Stylish. I liked it."

 

* * *

 

Breakfast sort of sprawled into a group hangout session. Steve and Jean emerged from her office, looking like they'd sorted out their differences in a satisfactory manner. Natasha and Kel showed up not long after, and Sam found out that they'd been inspecting the weapons and armor that Kel had taken off the two Gold-Tips. Pieces of their armor bore the same swirling pattern as the tanks had, and Natasha was fixated on it.

"They also had rust bombs," she said absently, turning over a metal forearm guard in her hands.

Sam frowned. "Sorry — rust?"

"The vibranium-killer. I got sick of trying to pronounce Kel's term for it."

" _Rrzhtik-che_ ," Kel said, patiently.

"That's the one. We need a translation into Human, and I nominate 'rust'."

"Seconded," Clint said quickly.

"Fine with me," said Sam. "Makes sense they'd be carrying it, if they were expecting to run into Vision."

But Natasha's head tilted skeptically. "Their choice of delivery system assumes that Vision would get within range, rather than frying them from a distance. He destroyed their fleet — they know what kind of firepower he's got. A couple of grenades are pretty meager in comparison."

"Okay, so what are we missing?"

"I don't know yet. Tony, what do you make of this?"

She reached out with the piece of armor. Sam quickly intercepted it in the guise of passing it down the table, and set it in front of Tony. Natasha noticed, because she noticed that sort of thing, but didn't comment.

Tony picked it up. "Not vibranium, obviously. Good quality steel." He held it up to examine the pattern. "If we were back on Earth, I'd say the engraving was done with a laser. Who the hell knows what the local equivalent is." He set it down again. "Not much else I can say with just a visual inspection to go on. You want something more, I'll have to melt it down."

"Yes, I'd like to see that."

"Fine."

Clint's focus shifted to Steve and Jean. "So how much time do you figure we've got until the war catches up with us again?"

Jean replied, "Assuming the northbound contingent landed where I think they did, and assuming Vision's report doesn't destroy my land speed estimates, they've got some tough terrain ahead of them. Rocky slopes and crevasses, or else very wide detours. Steve and I guess that they'll be lucky to make ten miles per day for a while. They'll speed up once they get closer, but overall we're estimating twenty-five to thirty days for them to reach us. Further assuming that Humphrey heads straight north and doesn't get creative, it's possible that he intercepts them within ten days. I'd love to imagine a protracted period of confusion and command indecision, but…"

"But it's more likely that he'll take over and rework their strategy without any significant delays," Steve said. "Collecting all of their forces in one place was a serious mistake, and one that they won't make again. Our weak point is our numbers. They'll split up into more teams than we can cover — I'm guessing at least ten, any one of which will still be large enough to pose a serious threat."

"My engineering consultant assures me that they don't have time to build a new bridge," Jean continued.

"Not one sturdy enough to carry tanks, anyway," said Tony. "Even hollow wooden centipede tanks."

"Which means that their objective has to be the suspension bridge. We have that much going for us — we know where they'll be."

"Unfortunately, they have a lot more options than we do," Steve said. "They can approach in waves, from multiple directions, and wear us down. We don't dare let even one unit get past us. Also, we have to assume that Humphrey will anticipate that we mined the bridge. Once they get in range, we'll need to be alert for attempts to sabotage our explosives."

Clint asked, "Should we take the bridge down now, while we still can?"

Natasha replied, "If they see that it's gone, they'll spread out, veer past us, and head south. It'll be a lot harder for us to pin them down that way."

"I tend to agree," Jean said. "The bridge is our bait. We leave it up to draw them in, and focus on taking out their units one at a time once they get in range."

Sam said, "We're expecting Vision tonight, right?"

"Yes. He'll give us a better idea of what we're dealing with. In the meantime, there's no sense in making detailed plans before we have data. Let's relax today, and start fresh tomorrow."

Clint leaned back and stretched his arms over his head. "Boss-Lady, coming through with the ideas."

A door opened off to his left, and Sam turned to see the Spider-kid come wandering out of his barracks.

"Oh," he said when he saw them all assembled. "Hey, everyone. Did I miss breakfast?"

While the kid got his breakfast, Kel tracked down Aaron and brought him to the table. Collectively, they started on a very informal mission debriefing. Jean's attempt to rebuke Aaron for leaving the cave and chasing after the team didn't go any better than it had the night before. He just retorted that a mile-long hike could have killed her if he hadn't been around to stabilize her broken ribs.

"You do your job, and let me worry about mine," he said, completely unimpressed by her irritation. "And while you're at it, be grateful that it was something I could fix."

Sam bit his lip to keep the grin off his face. Everyone else at the table looked to be in about the same position.

After a long pause in which she received no help at all, Jean finally said, "Let's move on."

The meeting ended about an hour later, and they started to go their separate ways. Natasha was still interested in the patterned gauntlet, and Sam stuck around as a buffer between her and Tony. The three of them headed to the forge.

Once Tony got the furnace going, he took the arm guard in a pair of tongs, and asked Natasha, "Out of curiosity, does your theory involve this thing exploding?"

"I don't have a theory," she said. "Just questions. But out of curiosity, do you have safeguards against that sort of thing?"

He pointed upward, where a thick net (green, of course) was suspended from the ceiling. "That'll dampen the worst of it, and maybe give us time to run."

Fantastic. Sam braced himself as Tony lowered the metal into the heated coals. But nothing exploded. The armor simply heated until it began to glow.

Tony set it on the anvil and gave it some taps with his hammer, delicately at first, then with greater force. Again, nothing out of the ordinary happened. A section of the metal flattened out beneath the hammer blows, and the closest of the shallow grooves began to warp.

"It's handling almost exactly like the steel I forged," Tony said. "Slightly different carbon content, maybe, but not by much. Density, specific heat, color spectrum are all in line with what I'd expect. And the engravings aren't reacting at all."

"Okay," said Natasha. "Whatever we're missing, this isn't it. Thanks, Tony."

He nodded tightly and didn't reply.

She departed. Sam hung back.

"Something you need, Sam?" Tony quenched the metal in a bucket of water, and started closing up shop again.

Sam glanced over his shoulder to make sure that they were alone. "This mess with Natasha is my fault. Anything I can do?"

"Don't be ridiculous, it's not your fault," Tony said. "You're not the one who…" He stopped. "There's no point in talking about it until I'm through being angry about it, and I'm still _angry_."

Sam knew a dead end when he saw one. "Okay. Different topic, then. I'm thinking of taking another look at the bridge today, and I'd like to take the Spider-kid with me. You want to come?"

"Didn't Jean just give us the day off?"

"We can take horses."

The two of them left the forge together. "Yeah, all right," Tony said. "You start gearing up, I'll corral the kid and tell Jean what we're up to."

They took fresh horses (collectively Non-George) and set an easy pace down the west road. The suspension bridge was a solid two-hour hike from camp, but the weather was good and the kid could supply enough chit-chat for for all of them.

The bridge was an impressive piece of architecture for being made entirely out of wood. It had a hundred-yard span, bracketed by towers supporting thick cables that swooped from one end to the other and buried themselves in the dirt. The pillars of the towers extended below the walkway and angled back to meet the sides of the cliff.

Sam had been out scouting beta site locations when Jean and Tony had rigged the bridge with explosives. He didn't know exactly what he was looking for, just that he wanted to see all of their countermeasures firsthand.

The trigger lines ran below the bridge and came out on the far side of the ravine. Tony sent Spider-Man climbing down beneath the walkway to check on the charges. Meanwhile, he and Sam tethered the horses, and began to cross the normal way.

Sam had to admit, he'd had an ulterior motive for this trip. He'd been doing his best to stay out of Steve and Tony's way as they figured each other out. If they were going to put a working relationship back together again, they had to do it on their own terms. Unfortunately, the team was on a deadline, and there was one issue in particular that they couldn't afford to delay.

"So you heard, right?"

Tony glanced his way. "Heard what?"

"The off switch worked. One loop of it and the eyeball-vines retreated."

"Yeah. I heard."

They walked. Tony did not keep talking.

"Well?"

He glared. "Shouldn't I be talking to Steve about this?"

" _Are_ you talking to Steve about it?"

Tony threw up his hands and meandered to a halt. "Look, even setting aside all the other issues… I have no idea if there's anything I can do."

It wasn't exactly a shock that this was turning out to be difficult. "You seemed pretty confident that you could have done something if we'd taken the outpost," Sam said.

"Yes, because I imagined that we'd find tools and instruments and prototypes. Maybe, if we were lucky, even records. But do I have any of those things? No — I have a single plant that produces color-coded string!" He sighed and rubbed the back of his head. "Look, I have built some very impressive things out of very unimpressive components, but _this_? This is a stretch. There's no guarantee the stuff inside him will respond to the same signals, not to mention I don't have a delivery system, I have no way to know the right dosages or saturation levels, how to spread the chemical through the entire network of strands…"

"I'm no engineer, but those sound like engineering problems." When Tony didn't respond, Sam added, "Look, we've got three more months of this. Multiple major engagements. We've been doing all right for ourselves, but super-soldier Steve would be pretty damned useful."

Quietly, Tony said, "I don't want to get his hopes up."

Now they were getting closer to the real stuff. "Is that the only reason?"

Again, Tony didn't answer.

"He's easier to deal with this way, isn't he?" Sam said. "Not gonna lie, I haven't hated being the stronger, faster one for a change. But is that a good enough reason to keep him this way?"

"You know what happened in Siberia," Tony said. "How many favors do you think I owe him?"

"I thought you were working things out."

"We are. Everything except that." He turned and paced away. "It's been almost a year and a half, and I'm still not sure if I'm ready to… and before you say it, I _know_ our fight shouldn't have anything to do with fixing him. The more weapons we've got, the better our chances. Simple."

Sam stayed quiet while Tony continued to pace.

"But if it doesn't work, because maybe I _can't_ actually reconstruct the scorpions' bioengineering principles from a single plant…" Tony stopped next to the fence that lined the walkway and looked out between the planks. "Then there'll be a part of him that thinks I did it on purpose. And then it's just one more thing between us that doesn't sit right."

Sam didn't have a solution, and it wouldn't have been his place to offer one if he did. But at least now he could be sure that Tony was working the problem.

Tony abruptly pushed himself away from the fence. "Okay, change of subject, starting now," he announced. "You wanted to see the bridge again? Here we are. What do you make of it?"

They resumed their way across. "The enemy has got to know that we're ready to take it down," Sam said. "It's way too obvious a target."

"Sure."

"So why would they go for it at all?"

"Because they think they can disable the charges."

"Exactly. That has to be their first move. The simple version is that we stop them. But if Jean's serious about taking some of them out when the bridge goes, then we'll need to convince them they succeeded."

The kid had long since finished his inspection run. He was, for some reason, waiting for them at the very top of the pillar where the cable began its arc.

"Yeah, I see where you're going with this," Tony said. "When it comes to quick and discreet repairs…" He gestured in Spider-boy's direction.

"Pretty much," said Sam. "They don't know we have a Spider-Man. We need to use that. What's the easiest way to sabotage the charges?"

"Unless they've also got a climber, the explosives themselves are pretty inaccessible. The obvious vulnerability is the trigger lines."

"Could the kid repair or replace them in a hurry?"

"Yeah, he did all the setup in the first place. Shouldn't be a problem."

Sam noted the tightness in his voice. "I know that's closer to the action than you wanted to bring him."

Tony scowled. "Well, I haven't gotten one single thing that I wanted on that front, now, have I? If he's under the bridge, he's out of the line of fire. I can live with it."

The two of them reached the other side of the ravine and stepped off the walkway, ducking beneath the suspension cable. Tony waved, and the Spider-kid made an easy forty-foot hop down to ground level to join them.

"Everything looks fine," he said. "The lines, the boxes. Just like we left them."

"Good."

Tony showed Sam the bundle of green trigger lines that had been concealed in the dirt. Each one had a six-inch stick somehow fused to the end of it.

"Numbers for positions," Tony said, pointing to some small black tick marks. "One and two are on the main pillar on the eastern side, then counting up as you get closer to us. Breaking the stick sends a chemical reaction along the line that eventually triggers the explosive."

Simple enough. Sam tracked the lines back toward the bridge, and started carefully inching his way down the steep slope that led to the cliff.

Though, before he got too far, he looked over his shoulder and said, "Kid, if I slip and fall, I damned well expect you to catch me."

"Sure, no problem."

On this side, the wires weren't particularly subtle. Sam quickly located the point where they stuck out of the dirt and began their path along the underside of the bridge. He worked his way closer, gravel sliding treacherously beneath his boots, until he was directly beneath them. A pair branched off and ran down the closest pillar, where they joined up with two metal boxes some twenty feet below. The rest of the bundle stretched on beneath the walkway. The explosives themselves would have taken either an experienced climbing team or a Spider-Man to reach, but the wires were easy.

Sam scrambled his way back to level ground again. "If it's me, depending on how much of a rush I'm in, I'd cut the wires on this side," he said. "Probably in multiple places, one obvious and at least one not-so-obvious."

"Wait — how are they supposed to get to this side?" Spider-Man asked.

"With an army? We're hoping they can't. But if it's just a small sabotage crew, all they'd have to do is climb down the cliff, swim the river, and climb back up."

Tony's eyebrows went up. "'All'?"

"I don't think there's much that Humphrey's guys don't have the nerve to try."

He conceded the point with a wave of his hand. "So we run regular checks on the wires and the charges, and when the time comes, the kid sits somewhere on this side — very, _very_ quietly — waits for the sabotage crew to do their thing, and fixes it."

"If they're that daring or whatever," Spider-Man said, "wouldn't they climb under the bridge and steal the TNT?"

_Then set off the explosives before they can finish_. But Sam knew that Tony would never let the kid do something like that. "We'll just have to make sure they don't have that kind of time," he said instead.

Sam and Tony explored the region on both sides of the ravine a bit more, while the Spider-kid amused himself by climbing the sides of the cliff. Moisture scented the air, and the sound of the rushing river was a constant low-grade pressure on Sam's eardrums. He could see some distance up and down the length of the ravine, of course, but the heavy tree cover killed sightlines in every other direction.

It wasn't the place he would have chosen to make their last stand. But he was pretty sure they weren't going to have a choice.

When Sam had seen enough, he indicated as much to Tony, and the three of them regrouped where they'd left the horses. They sat down for a quick lunch, then headed back to camp.

Vision returned that evening, on schedule, and they all gathered at a picnic table after supper to discuss his intel.

"The enemy forces lost two more landing parties to minefields before they reached a safe harbor," Vision said. "I was able to shadow them for a day before I had to return. The terrain they are attempting to traverse is mountainous, and their progress is slow."

"What are their numbers?" Jean asked.

"They have just over five hundred Mjentur, fifteen Nyth, and another hundred or so of the reptilian species. The majority are on foot, but they bring with them fifty of their multi-legged wooden vehicles."

"You know," Clint said, "it's too bad we couldn't take a closer look at the tanks the southbound crew abandoned."

"Every carrion eater for a hundred miles is converging on that spot," Jean replied. "Not to mention the moss."

"Sounds like a Vision kind of job, then, while there's still time."

"A good point," she admitted, "but we owe Wanda an update first, and I'd like to hear one in return. Vision, the next place I'd like to send you is the beta site."

"Actually, hold up a second," Clint said. "I feel like we're missing something obvious here. Vision, I know you're not usually the guy with the high body count, but under the circumstances…" He took a look around the rest of the table. "We know where the rest of the army is. Why can't he go there right now and blast them all?"

"Hold that thought," Natasha said, and left the table. She returned a minute later, carrying another piece of Gold-Tip armor. This was bigger than the last piece Sam had seen — maybe a shin guard. She leaned it up against the leg of the neighboring table.

"Vision, your beam could punch through this, right?"

"I should think so, yes."

"Give it a try."

He stepped safely away from the rest of the group, and zapped.

The energy beam struck. The loops and swirls on the metal all flashed a brilliant red.

When the flare died down, the armor didn't have a mark on it. Completely untouched.

"Well, shit," said Clint.

"That was… unexpected," said Vision.

Natasha looked at Jean. "You were right. You had to be. They weren't afraid of Vision, and now we know why."

"Now we know," Jean echoed, not looking all that pleased with herself.

A few heads turned in Tony's direction.

"Okay, there must be something inside those grooves," he said. "Knowing the scorpions, it's something organic. Specifically tuned to the energy frequencies in Vision's beam — that's why it didn't react to simple heat. There has to be a way to neutralize it. I'll find it."

"In the meantime," Jean said, "Vision, you do not engage the enemy alone. You'll stick to reconnaissance for the time being. And for the rest of us? It's back to work tomorrow."

 

* * *

 

Tony wanted to make one thing very clear: he was _not_ hiding in his room.

He was, in fact, working. Their mini-vacation had ended; it was a new day, and he had work to do. Lots and lots of important theoretical work that required quiet contemplation, and _that_ was the reason he'd gone back to his dorm after breakfast. _Not_ to make himself scarce while Jean assembled the gang for some weapons practice.

(The Barton conversation and the Sam conversation were still pinging around in his brain, knocking him off-kilter. He really needed that morning to be about something easy like reverse-engineering the scorpions' anti-Vision armor, and not something difficult like whether he was up to sparring with Steve yet.)

But it turned out that Kel had other plans.

She walked in without knocking and shut the door behind her. "Hi, Tony."

"You need me for something?"

"No."

The rest of the cots had been shipped to the beta site. Tony occupied a solitary bed in a large, empty room. Kel, nothing daunted, crossed to the corner nearest Tony and sat down on the floor.

He scowled as he watched this happen. "Oh, do come in and make yourself comfortable," he said. "Is there some reason you're here?"

She leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes. "Yes."

"Is it to annoy me?"

"I don't annoy. I'm very quiet."

Tony leaned forward and rubbed his forehead. He _really_ didn't think he deserved this. "Are you going to bug me about the fact that I'm not out there doing drills with the rest of the team?"

"Is this something you want to talk about?"

"No! I don't want to talk about anything! I'm trying to work!"

She opened her eyes, took a pointed look around the empty room, and closed them again. "All right."

Fine. She wanted to sit there? She could sit there. No skin off his nose. Tony picked up his notes and tried to reconstruct his chain of thought. Resonance frequencies. The issue was the resonance frequencies of…

Nope. This was completely unworkable.

"For crying out loud, would you get up off the floor?"

He gestured her over, and she sat down next to him on the bed. "Hi, Tony."

"Stop that."

He didn't want to talk about it. He did _not_  want to talk about it.

Except for the part where talking about it helped.

Kel waited silently, patiently. It wasn't pressure to talk so much as it was acknowledgment that he was having a difficult time. Tony hated having stuff like that acknowledged on general principle, but his hackles were going back down as he reminded himself that she'd seen him in far worse shape than this.

She'd seen worse, and she'd heard worse. He didn't want to talk about it, except he kind of did.

He had no idea where to start, which was probably why the first thing he said had almost no bearing on anything.

"You never let Steve and me cross swords," he said.

"This is true. Did you want to?"

He shook his head. Their swordfighting sessions had been a big step. Kel had walked them through the process of helping each other and learning from each other, and in so doing had chased the memories of Siberia back to a much safer distance. But critiquing each other's footwork was a far cry from facing off against each other.

"The problem," he said, "is that there are two issues that should be separate, except they've gotten… I don't know, stuck together in my head, and the difficult one is screwing up the easy one."

"What's the easy one?" she asked.

Tony gestured back and forth between himself and an invisible opponent. "This training business," he said. "Whether I can work out with the group yet. Spar with him." He looked down and discovered his other hand was pressed to the center of his chest. He dropped it back down to his lap with a grimace. "I mean, we're not suddenly going to go for each other's throats again. It hasn't been like that for months. This shouldn't be… It's _ridiculous_. I should just go, right? Go and get it over with."

Kel tilted her head noncommittally. "What's the difficult one?"

_Aw fuck_.

He was silent. She was patient.

Finally the words reached critical mass. "Siberia," Tony said. "What we fought about. My parents. I, uh…" He looked down at his hands, which were twisted together, working at each other. "Steve and I, we've talked through a few things, but we haven't tried… _that_. It's coming up, though. Last major item on the agenda. And maybe it's freaking me out a little. The thought of… figuring it out. Moving past it."

Kel's presence remained calm and steady.

"After my parents died, I fell apart hard. Not that I was ever the most well-adjusted kid, but… And I blamed my dad, you know? He was driving. He got them killed." The words seemed to echo in the empty room and Tony jerked in shock. "Uh… I've never actually said that part out loud before, so…"

"I'm still here," she murmured.

"And then it turns out, that story isn't what happened at all. How do you come back from… when such a fundamental, a foundational piece of your life turns out to be completely different from what you thought it was, how do you move forward?"

This, he knew from experience, was going to be a conversation filled with long pauses. Kel let him sit and breathe for a while first.

Then she said, "Time moves us all forward. This isn't the choice."

"Yeah."

She shifted a little closer to him. "We heal… imperfectly. Slowly. Maybe it never finishes. But there's more to you than just this piece of damage, Tony. I promise. A conversation with Steve — even a difficult one — doesn't have to be about your entire life. It can just be a conversation."

He mulled that over a bit.

"I don't know what I want," Tony said. "Isn't that one of your go-to lines? I should figure out what I want? I don't have a clue. Part of me wants to know exactly what was going through his head when he found out my parents had been murdered. I want to hear his reasons for not telling me about it, and I want to tear them to _pieces_ , until he understands _exactly_ how wrong he was!" He pulled up short and sucked in a breath, and looked at her ruefully. "But you're probably going to tell me that some of that isn't healthy."

"Understandable," Kel said instead. "He hurt you. Before you choose to trust, you want to be certain it never happens again. But there's no such thing as certain about what other people do."

"So let me guess: I should take it slow, set reasonable expectations, not extrapolate wildly from any one interaction. Right?"

"If I guess correctly what 'extrapolate' means, yes."

"Hm."

"And Tony? You don't betray your parents if you choose to trust Steve again."

Every bit of air vanished from the room.

" _But I blamed_ —"

"You act with the information you have," she said firmly. "You know something now that changes the circumstances. It isn't your fault you didn't know it then. And yes, part of the information you have now is that Steve didn't tell you this, but part of it can also be the things he does to show that he doesn't want to hurt you again. You're allowed to forgive him. If it's what you want. It's all right."

Her hand alighted on his back — that was a signal that the worst of the talking was over — and Tony let himself curl up and shut out everything except his breathing and her touch.

(Not forgiven. Not yet. But this was the first time he'd admitted to himself that forgiveness had become the goal.)

Eventually a new equilibrium settled in, and he straightened up and wiped his eyes. "I guess I needed to hear that," he admitted. "A couple months ago, I couldn't have imagined coming this far. It's…"

"Yes," she said. "Change is difficult. Even to change something painful into something less painful."

Yeah. Seemed pretty damned unfair.

"When you and Steve and I trained together," Kel said, "I didn't want to push. But maybe I should have, a little more. The longer you avoid something, the more your brain believes that there's danger that should be avoided."

Tony took a look at her face, and extrapolated. "He's waiting outside, isn't he."

"Yes."

Maybe… maybe it was finally time to try this. One more step towards leaving Siberia behind him.

"Can you stick around?" he asked.

"Of course."

Kel went out, and came back with Steve. Tony stood up to meet them.

"Hey," he said. "I'd offer you a seat, but…"

"It's fine." Steve took a look around the empty room. "This is… I'm looking for a polite way to say 'bleak'."

"It's private. Haven't had a lot of that recently."

"Fair enough."

"Just how badly did you expect this conversation to go?" Tony asked.

"What?"

"You have your shield."

Steve looked down at his arm like he'd forgotten he had one. "Oh. Yeah. Sorry." He set the shield down against the wall. "We were about to do some weapons training. I guess I'd hoped you would join us."

"Yeah. Thought about it."

Steve looked from Tony to Kel and did some extrapolating of his own. "Obviously this is about Siberia," he said. "What can I do to help?"

If Tony'd known _that_ … "In terms of… us," he said, and gestured between them. "Repairs and so forth. There are still two things. Well, three things. Arguably four things." Steve's expression made it clear that he wasn't keeping up with Tony's math, and Tony waved a dismissive hand. "Actually, forget that. Kel, help me out here. Hand-to-hand, something simple."

She stepped forward, and Tony shifted automatically into a fighting stance, like they'd done dozens of times before. She gave him the universal 'bring it on' gesture.

The trick to Kel was… nope, there was no trick to Kel. Fighting her was like fighting your own reflection, if the reflection was a little bit faster. Tony threw a quick jab, harder follow-up, both blocked. She closed with an elbow, and he blocked and countered in turn. Kel ducked quickly back, trying to escape his greater range, and he pressed his advantage with a hard right — trapped, twisted, and suddenly he was flat on his back.

"That was your idea of simple?"

Kel blinked at him. "Yes?"

Tony sighed. "One day I'll stop asking stupid questions."

She hauled him back to his feet. "You do my part. Steve? Follow me. Slow, no power."

The sudden mental effort of reconstructing what Kel had done was just enough to get him past the jolt of _it's Steve attacking_ and then… it was just the exercise. Block, block, elbow, that cute little dodge-and-fade thing she did to encourage her opponent to overcommit, then trap and twist and—

Okay, Kel made this shit look easy when in fact it was not.

She stepped in and adjusted his hands. "Circle here first, then press straight down."

He tried it again. Could feel Steve cooperating with him. They didn't do the full takedown, just enough to push Steve off-balance.

"Not bad," Kel said. "Again."

They reset. It was still okay.

Kel kept them on a short leash with regards to speed and power. She made little nudges to form and technique on both of them. Steve gamely went along with all this, even though from his point of view it probably made no sense. They repeated the drill, and repeated it again. No panic ensued.

With his body safely occupied, Tony decided to try airing a few of the things on his mind.

"The first time I tried this with Jean, she grazed my face a little," he said. "It shouldn't have been a big deal, but it put me back in that bunker for a couple seconds. Reliving the moment I thought I was about to die." Block, dodge, trap-circle-press. "Do you ever have that?"

Steve shook out his arm a little, and reset his position. "Not really when I'm awake," he replied. "Dreams, definitely. Then I wake up, and it takes a while to come back to me. What century it is. Who's dead and who's not."

"Mm."

"There've been a couple times in combat when I forgot which battle I was fighting. Which war."

"A little more speed now," Kel told them.

_It's okay. It'sokayit'sokayit'sokay_. The hits came a bit harder, and Tony had to pull off the takedown move faster and smoother or else Steve would twist out of it. He focused on the drill for several rounds. It was still okay.

"I know I'm the one who said that I wanted to know the details of what you found out and when," Tony said, and Steve stumbled his way through an uncharacteristically clumsy left-right combination. "But I've spent the last ten seconds reconsidering. So let's just hit the highlights. You knew my parents were murdered."

"Yes."

Trap-circle-press and Steve went over backwards. Tony pulled him back to his feet again.

"You found out way back during the DC thing."

"Yes."

"And you never once saw fit to mention it to me. Don't say 'yes' to that."

They broke apart. That was safer. Steve's expression was locked down as he braced for more recrimination.

Tony paced away a couple steps, then turned back. "I'm not okay with it, and I'll never be okay with it," he said. "But I have to decide if there's more to… us. This. The team. Than just that moment."

Quietly, Steve asked, "What do you think?"

Instead of answering, Tony put up his hands. Steve glanced at Kel, who gave him a nod. He closed the distance, and started the combination again.

"I think you've changed since you've been here," Tony said. He let his speed and power tick up another notch, confident that Kel would step in if things started to get out of control. "Obviously I don't mean the stuff that was done to you, I mean… experiences have changed you."

Steve matched him strength for strength. "I could have said that about you."

"Better, or worse?"

"Better. What about me?"

"Same."

Tony bore him to the ground again, then clasped his hand and yanked him back up.

"No faster than this for now," Kel said, and they both nodded acknowledgment.

It was silence and the drill for another few rounds. Tony's muscles were starting to burn, and he was going to have bruises the next day. Steve was sweating from the exertion. Neither of them stopped.

Steve was the one who spoke next. "I think there was a part of me that hoped that giving Jean command was going to bring some kind of… profound new insight into who I'm supposed to be. Is that ridiculous?"

"Tiny bit," said Tony.

"Of course it didn't. I still feel… adrift, a lot of the time." Trap-circle-press; clasp hands. "But it's important to me that we're working together again. I'm ashamed of how badly I hurt you. I know that doesn't solve anything, but—"

"You _did_ hurt me," Tony said. "But I can choose to believe that it won't happen again."

Steve stopped dead and damned near got elbowed in the face. "Is that what you've decided?"

It had been over seventeen months since the worst moment of his life. Since then: a fucking portal, aliens and labor camps and torture, and the start of a war. But also new friends and new perspectives, and hope.

"There's still the whole Accords mess waiting for us back home," Tony said. "And I did not _give up_ on the team, and that's something I might need to talk about some more."

Steve nodded.

"But I think, by the end of this, you and I are going to be all right. I think that's where we're headed. How about you?"

Tony wasn't sure he'd ever seen Steve smile like that before.

"If that's where you're headed," he said, "then so am I."

"Good, then." Tony rubbed his hands together briskly. The sudden release of nervous energy left him antsy enough to climb the walls. "Oh — and one more question while I've got you here."

"What is it?" Steve asked.

"Any chance I could get some muscle tissue samples? I'd like to see what I can do about your problem."

 


	47. Chapter 47

**93 days**

Obviously, Tony couldn't have been expected to be productive (or more than baseline functional) immediately after that conversation with Steve. But then the next day rolled around, and he settled down enough to understand what he had to do next.

He had to go to the damned training session.

Mercifully, no one made a fuss. A couple of heads turned when he joined the rest of the crowd en route to the traditional training space. Then Kel split them off into groups and they all just got to work.

The sword specialists were him, Steve and Natasha, so _that_ was fun. Kel stayed close in a way that would have felt overbearing if his palms hadn't been sweating quite so much. She started them off with some straightforward, choreographed give-and-takes, nice and slow. He was partnered with Steve to begin with, then after some time had passed and no catastrophes happened, Kel set up a simple routine for the three of them to trade off partners and switch roles.

So yeah — there was Natasha, lightly swinging a sword at him and not engaging in unneeded conversation. She could hardly have failed to notice that he had a bone to pick with her, and she'd surely intuited why. Tony'd wondered occasionally if she would be the one to confront him, but so far she'd done nothing but give him space.

He'd begun the process of forgiving Steve, a concept that he would have rejected out of hand six months ago. Why was Natasha so different?

( _What did you expect? She's a spy_.)

Except no, that wasn't… he already knew without running the experiment that if he'd said that to Kel, she would have followed up with some delicate yet probing questions intended to bring him around to the idea that Natasha deserved to be judged by higher standards than a glitchy motherboard.

Speaking of Kel, her training sword appeared out of goddamned nowhere and broke up his match with Steve.

She jabbed the point of the sword into the grass and left it standing there while she came alongside him. "Tony?" she said quietly. "Step away if you need to. If not, then focus."

"Yep. Sorry."

He took a breath, and focused.

The workout qua workout turned out to be fine. They did sword-versus-sword drills and sword-versus-spear drills, ramping up the intensity until everyone was sweating and out of breath. Tony wasn't sure if this was standard or for his benefit, but the only free-form sparring they did consisted of different combinations of humans versus Kel. Humanity lost.

Afterward, the rest of the group scattered to whatever tasks would occupy them next. Tony dithered a bit, maybe to see if he was going to have any difficulties after the fact.

He'd guessed that Jean had gone to her office, because that was always a safe guess, but then she reappeared from around the corner of the shower building.

"Could I borrow you for a moment?" she asked.

"Yeah, what do you need?"

"Nothing, except perhaps your indulgence." Then she leaned in and… _hugged_ him.

Tony stood there gaping like a fish for a stretch, until he managed to pull himself together and sputter, "What was _that_ for?"

"It was obviously difficult for you to join us, presumably for reasons having to do with Steve that are none of my business," Jean said. "But you did it, and you did well. I just wanted you to know that I noticed." Then she walked away.

Ridiculous woman. Completely unreasonable. He was _not_ smiling.

 

* * *

 

**92 days**

Someone had to stay behind with Aaron to keep an eye on things, and the Spider-kid was the natural choice. Everyone else took horses and followed the south road to the base of the switchback, where Vision had dropped one of the enemy tanks.

As Sam descended the hill, he could see that the wooden panels making up the top of the tank were much darker and of a different texture than the rest of the body. The whole thing was about ten feet tall and thirty feet long. The length was broken into segments connected by flexible joints. Not all that interesting a design, except for the part where it rested on a couple dozen woody, multi-jointed legs.

"Someone talk to me about the legs," Jean said.

Vision replied, "I tend to agree with Ms. Romanoff that the morphology resembles that of terrestrial millipedes more closely than that of centipedes."

Jean stared hard at the sky for a moment. "Thank you, Vision. Let me be more specific. Is it… alive? Does it have a brain?"

"No brain," Kel said. "No nervous system. I sense nothing. If parts are alive, they're more like plant than animal." She opened the hatch and stepped inside.

"Let's not be incautious here," Jean said. "If this thing wakes up and goes on a rampage…"

Kel popped her head back out when the end of the sentence didn't happen. "Yes?"

"I'm going to be upset!"

"I think we all will. You want to know how to kill it? Then we have to take it apart."

Sam had been pretty out of it the last time he'd been inside one of these things. He remembered wooden benches, and a whole lot of spinning that had almost certainly been his head and not the tank. Time to be a little more observant.

He followed Kel inside, and Jean came after him. The interior was shadowed, of course, but a length of light-emitting vine was strung along the ceiling. There were narrow viewing slits at the front and along the sides. When Sam leaned in to try one, he found that there was a lens set into it like a peephole, greatly widening the field of view.

"Controls to direct it at the front," Kel said, pointing to some pedals and levers on the forward control panel. "Backups here at the next bench. Four sets of weapons systems on the sides. If you don't touch any of these, I think it's fine. It doesn't do things by itself."

"Okay, everybody out of my tank," Tony announced as he climbed aboard, hauling a satchel of tools with him.

"Your tank?" Jean inquired.

"My tank. You want it taken apart? Then scram."

Sam asked him, "Could you use an extra set of hands?"

"Sure, okay, if you're offering. Just, if I say not to touch something—"

"Got it." He had no desire to tangle with the scorpions' idea of an anti-theft device.

Jean and Kel cleared out, and Sam and Tony got to work.

Earth-style power sources didn't work on this planet. That was one thing that had been made crystal clear to everyone. So it wasn't a battery, exactly, that they eventually discovered inside the thing. It wasn't a spinal cord, either, at least according to Kel. But it was, somehow, the plant equivalent of both: a thick, bulging green stalk that lay beneath the floorboards and ran the length of the tank. It sprouted hundreds of smaller shoots that led down into the base and out into the walls.

"Vines," Tony said. "Of course it's vines. Everything's vines."

The dark panelling on the top of the tank, Tony confirmed, was for collecting solar energy. Vines ran through the walls and somehow fed that power down into the spine.

"There's more structures down here," Tony said, peering down into the lower compartment by the light of a lantern. "Something distressingly intestine-like, in particular. Between the two columns of legs are… let's go with mouths, I guess, that suck up vegetation and feed it into the stomach. Solar power augmented by digestion to create an organic, self-recharging battery."

"Does any of that help us kill it?" Sam asked.

"Makes it harder to kill," Tony said. "Everything's decentralized. No brain, which means no obvious vulnerability like a brainstem. Short of ripping out the entire central line, there's not much we can do to disable it completely. The best bet is to disconnect steering and/or weapons control. Let's dig around a bit more. Can you start pulling up the boards beneath that side panel?"

The shell of the tank had been built from some kind of specially bred ironwood, but luckily the interior was done with lumber that yielded to a saw or a hammer. Sam took a moment to toss some of the broken wood planks out the hatch, noting as he did that the rest of the group was relaxing behind the tank on the side of the hill. Then he got to work on prying up the section of floor that Tony was interested in. Tony worked his way around the hole they'd made already and added his efforts. To the shock of no one, they uncovered another bundle of vines. Tony started delicately tracking the different threads, with Sam lending a hand where requested.

They never came to an agreement on whose fault it was.

The entire tank jolted on its feet at the same time as a massive thunderclap sent them both ducking for cover. Once the echo faded, Sam lunged for the hatch.

He found the team now on their feet, all staring in the same direction. Sam hopped down, Tony hard on his heels, and they looked.

The trail of destruction was almost as impressive as when the sea monster had bombarded the garrison.

"I was just starting to like that tree," Natasha said. "And the one behind it. And the one behind it."

Okay… at least now they knew what the weapons systems were like. Sam took a few steps back from the tank, and found that some kind of thick antenna-like thing had extended from the top of it, more or less above where he and Tony had been poking around. That had to be the cannon that fired the shot.

(Just to be clear, he didn't know if Earth millipedes had antennae, and he didn't care.)

So. They were going to be a small group on foot versus multiple tanks. Tanks that had been designed specifically to resist all of their available anti-tank weaponry. Tanks carrying cannons that could wipe the lot of them out in one unlucky shot.

This was _not_ going to be easy.

Jean said, "Let's congratulate ourselves on having the sense to play with this thing well away from the camp."

"Interesting," Tony said, looking from the cannon to the damage and back. "Hey, Sam, head back in there and try to find whatever it was you touched, and touch it again."

"Whoa, whoa, what _I_ touched?"

"Or what I touched! Just… go poke some vines. Please."

At least a 'please' had shown up eventually.

Sam was beginning to see why Tony was always muttering about how much he hated this planet. Inside the tank, he braced himself, and poked some vines.

After several _really_ stupid seconds, he'd touched everything that either one of them had touched, and nothing had happened.

"Yeah, that's what I figured," Tony said when Sam came back out again. "There's a significant recharge delay. And I'll bet each cannon's only got a limited number of plasma balls in it. That's the trouble with using organic systems to store your energy."

Jean was staring up at the antenna with a pensive frown. "How many shots per cannon, and how many cannons per tank?" she asked.

"There are four weapons stations, and I'd say each one can fire five, six times at the most," Tony said. "Then the whole thing would have to sit in the sun for a few hours."

"That's still a lot of firepower. Do those markings render them immune to each other?"

"We'll test that, but probably."

"And we know Vision can't blast them," Clint continued, "and if he tries to bust them up the old-fashioned way, he risks getting in range of their rust bombs. Wanda would come in pretty handy right about now."

"In the absence of Wanda, we need targeted countermeasures," Jean said. "Tony?"

"Yeah, I've got some thoughts," he said.

"Good. And one more thing."

He gestured at the cannon that she hadn't taken her eyes off. "Let me guess — you want one?"

"I want one."

 

* * *

 

**91 days**

"Still nothing?" Steve asked.

Tony sat back from his handmade microscope. "It's not _nothing_ , exactly," he said, though his expression told a different story. "The filaments do retract, they just don't die off. Infiltration levels are back where they started within a few hours."

"Maybe it would be different in me," Steve suggested. "If they retract enough, the serum could get the upper hand."

"Maybe, but I have no idea what that would do to you. If you could survive having every piece of muscle and bone try to regrow itself simultaneously."

Tony stood up from his stool and stretched his back, then turned and paced away. Steve stepped back as well, taking care not to hover or loom. Tony had set up his workspace along the back counter in the treatment room of the infirmary, since Aaron had the means to store tissue samples there. Steve didn't much like that room, for various reasons, and he knew Tony didn't either. They were both, in the spirit of their still very fragile understanding, making a conscious effort not to let stress turn them snappish.

"Steve, you know I'm…" Tony scratched the back of his head. "I mean, I'm going to do everything I can think of here. I'm not screwing with you. You know that, right?"

Steve's jaw fell open. "What? Of course! My God, Tony, do you think I'm going to blame you if this doesn't work out?"

"No, of course not. That's ridiculous. Forget it."

It wasn't a terribly persuasive denial.

Steve folded his arms. "Tony."

"Well, we don't exactly have the smoothest working relationship, do we?" he said. "And now here I am, messing around with your insides. It wouldn't be completely unreasonable for you to have a qualm or two."

"I don't," Steve replied firmly. "Obviously I'll be disappointed if this can't be fixed. But if it can't, it won't be because you didn't try. You're not that kind of person."

Tony was still milling about at the other end of the room. "But I am the kind of person who would try to murder your best friend," he said, not quite making eye contact. "I mean, there's a case to be made that I haven't entirely earned a presumption of good faith from you."

Now it was Steve's turn to awkwardly look away. "I'm not sure how much I can say here without violating rule four."

"Was it four?"

"Maybe. I don't remember all of them."

"Anyway. Suspended."

"I was angry with you," Steve admitted. "Bucky wasn't in control of his actions, and when you tried to—" His tone started to get away from him and he quickly broke off. Maybe this was still a sore spot, after all.

"It took a while before I could think about it from your point of view," he said instead, as Tony stared hard at the wall beside him. "No one could have responded rationally under those circumstances. No one. If you were still… I mean…"

"If I still wanted to kill him?"

"Yeah. That would be a problem. But we're past that now, right?"

Tony took a long moment before he responded. "Let me preface this by saying that I am pretty epically not okay with the entire… circumstance. Most of that's on me to deal with, and I'm working on it, but…" He sighed. "I know — up here, at least—" he tapped his temple "—that he wasn't by any rational measure responsible. So I've got no reason to go after him. Seems like he's got enough of his own problems."

(If only Steve had talked to Tony sooner. So that Tony could have taken time to process the news, rather than being blindsided by it under the worst possible circumstances. That day in Siberia could have been completely different. If only…)

He didn't say any of that, though, because Tony'd made it clear that he didn't want Steve's regrets. What they both needed to do was move forward.

"Then I'm not holding a grudge," Steve said instead, and tried out a cautious grin. "In fact, when it comes to messing with my insides, I trust you more than just about anyone on this planet."

Tony groaned and rolled his eyes heavily. "Really? You went for the 'on this planet' line? And here I thought Captain America had some dignity. By the way, who's the 'just about'?"

"Well, Aaron and Kel do have actual medical training, so…"

"Okay, you know what? Go away and let me work. When I need Aaron to slice me some more tissue samples, I'll let you know."

Steve departed, content that his problem was in the right hands.

 

* * *

 

**85 days**

"I hate to be the guy who adds another problem to the list," Clint said, "but there's something we haven't talked about yet. The portal-detecting cactus, or whatever the hell it was. We didn't salvage one, did we?"

Heads turned Kel's way.

She shook her head. "I hoped, but none of the things that grow now look like the plant I saw. I think it was destroyed."

Natasha let out a quiet breath. It was tempting, and occasionally necessary, to restrict her focus to the most immediate task only. But at the end of the war still lurked the problem of getting home — a problem that apparently wasn't getting any easier.

It had become their habit, after each day of training and building and planning, to gather in a loose cluster in the outdoor dining area and unwind. Social groupings varied, though one constant was that Tony was still avoiding her. (He did badly when cornered. She wasn't going to provoke a confrontation.) By tacit agreement, shop talk was discouraged; Clint was violating protocol by raising this now.

However, it was immediately clear why he was doing so. Tony hadn't arrived yet. He usually stayed late in one or another of his labs until Jean went and dragged him out. Peter, ever loyal, was with him. Tony knew about the snag in their travel plans, but it was very possible that Peter didn't. Furthermore, Vision was out of camp on a reconnaissance run, due back the next morning, and Natasha was pretty sure that he didn't know, either.

Jean might have been unhappy about compartmentalizing this piece of information, but she hadn't let that stop her from doing a thorough job of it.

Sam said, "We still have Wanda as a fallback, right?"

"Yes," said Natasha, "but if she's our only way home, we can't risk her in battle."

"Damn. I mean, I get it, but _damn_."

"In truth," Jean said, "now that we have Humphrey to deal with, I don't think I would have moved Wanda away from the beta site in any case. It seems inevitable that he'll try to distract us with a major assault from the front while sneaking a smaller group around to the rear. Wanda's the only one of us besides Kel whom I would ask to stave off such a thing by herself."

"For the portal, there's one other chance," Kel said. "We can check near the earlier locations. I know the plant has to be in the ground to work. I don't know if the Mjentur were ordered to destroy it after, or just leave it."

Jean replied, "It's worth looking into, but you're the only one who knows what you're looking for and I'm not comfortable sending you off for a week or more while we still have half an army hanging over us."

"Maybe Kel shouldn't be the only one who knows what she's looking for," Natasha said.

Kel's mouth twisted skeptically. "I can try to describe it, but I don't have a lot of Human words for plant pieces."

"I can make a sketch," Steve said. "It would be easier to work with a picture, right?"

"Yes, we can try."

"Then," Clint said to Jean, "the second half of my question is this: when are you planning on telling Wanda?"

Jean's jaw tightened for a second. "Not while there's still a chance that we can return to the original plan. The same goes for Vision. I don't want to run the slightest risk of letting rumors and fear spread through the general population. Should it become necessary, I will handle those conversations myself, and take responsibility for whatever hard feelings result."

"And if we check out the old sites and find nothing—"

"Then I'll speak to Wanda immediately."

"She's gonna be pissed."

"Rightly so. As I said: my responsibility. Anything else?"

Clint had his own ways of testing people. That had been just the mildest tap at Jean's boundaries, checking if she'd really thought through the consequences of her decision.

"Nah, Boss-Lady," he said, and let his posture relax a bit. "That covered it."

"Good," said Jean. "While we're on the subject, I have left it to Tony's discretion whether and when to discuss this problem with Peter, and to the best of my knowledge, he has not done so. I ask that we all continue to respect his decision."

She looked around the crowd, and received a general murmuring of assent.

"Then let's consider the subject closed." She stood up from the table and headed off to find Tony.

Once she was out of earshot, Clint asked, "Cap, where do you stand on all this?"

"Unfortunately, she's right," Steve replied. "Humphrey might not know exactly where the beta site is, but he knows we have one, and it's not that hard to figure out where to look. We have to leave Wanda where she is and deal with the army ourselves."

"Uh-huh. And how about the part where there could be a major problem that only she could solve, and she still doesn't know about it?"

Steve's eyes flicked Natasha's way for a second, which might have come across as unkind, except she knew exactly what piece of concealed information they were both thinking of.

Rather than force him to make the argument, Natasha said, "All it takes is one slip-up. One overheard conversation. A change in demeanor that sparks a rumor. I agree with Jean: we need to sit on this until the last possible moment."

Clint wasn't entirely satisfied — his pragmatism was being compromised by his protective streak toward Wanda — but he let the subject drop.

Just in time, as it turned out. Motion at the western border caught Natasha's eye. When Jean returned several minutes later with Tony and Peter in tow, she had a surprise waiting at her table.

"Hey, you guys!" Peter chirped. "What are you doing here?"

Jean's response to the new arrivals — Alisha and Team One, plus an ox — took a decidedly different tone.

"What happened?" she demanded. "Was there an attack? Is anyone hurt?"

"Told you she'd freak out," Frank said to Gabriela,

"No, no, nothing's wrong," Alisha said quickly. "We… um. We volunteer."

Jean stopped dead, and slowly crossed her arms. (Tony and Peter tiptoed around her and headed for their usual seats.)

"You volunteer," she said. "As tribute?"

Alisha winced. "Well, not as such, if it can possibly be avoided, but…"

Gabriela came to her rescue. "Look, every army needs logistical support," she said. "We get that we're not Avengers, and that you've got this whole protective streak going as far as combat is concerned — that's fine. But you still need people to scout ahead, to carry messages, set up base camps—"

"Another armorer," Alisha added.

"Hell, someone to brew the damned coffee. Frank can do that."

"Pavel can do that," Frank countered.

"The mundane stuff," Gab said. "You can't tell me you can't use us, so… use us."

"I could use another set of hands in the lab," Tony noted mildly. "Only so many hours in the day, you know?"

Jean looked up at the sky in a manner that suggested that she was wondering why the entire universe had been designed for the specific purpose of annoying her.

"We'll discuss it tomorrow morning," she said eventually, which of course meant that the group was staying. "Since you're here, how are our construction projects proceeding?"

"We'll make your deadline," Frank said.

"Good, because there might be some last-minute additions."

 

* * *

 

**82 days**

Tony and Alisha sat back from the bench and considered their handiwork.

"You think that did it?" Alisha asked.

"One way to find out."

That afternoon, the two of them plus Jean assembled at the base of the hill to the south, which was now understood to be the tank testing ground. Vision had brought several more tanks to the area over the last few days, and they lay strewn about the vicinity in various states of disassembly.

Tony slid down from George's saddle and gave him a friendly pat on the neck, then together he and Alisha extracted the large steel plate from the saddlebag that was straining at the seams. They carried it between them a safe distance from the horses, and wedged it up against the rock.

"This is left over from the armor I built for everyone," he said to Jean, who had followed. "Notice anything different?"

"Obviously," she said, and crouched beside the plate. "You replicated the engravings."

"We think we did, anyway," Tony said. The swirling lines certainly looked like the ones on the Gold-Tips' gear, but of course the issue wasn't the aesthetics. "Let's give it a try."

They backed well off. Jean and Alisha made sure the horses were secure, while Tony hopped inside the tank that was designated for weapons testing, lined up the cannon, and fired.

Through the viewing port, all he could see once the flare of light dissipated was that the steel plate was still there. He exited the tank and gave the all-clear, and the three of them went to inspect the damage.

Around the edges of the plate, the rock was badly scorched by the displaced energy. The metal itself, however, was untouched.

"Well," Jean said. "I am suitably impressed."

"Tony's hypothesis was right," Alisha said. "The markings are lined with an exotic organic compound that absorbs and redirects energy. Now that we know we can replicate it, we can treat all of our team's armor the same way."

"But let's be clear, there's still a hell of an impact," said Tony. "Don't take that blast unless you enjoy breaking ribs. I figure the Minos form up in a phalanx to distribute the shock across an entire group."

"Excellent work, both of you," Jean said. "Has this achievement provided you with any insight on how we might defeat their shielding?"

"Yeah, absolutely," Tony replied. "We've got something in the works right now. See, the engravings dissipate any energy discharge of sufficient intensity, either from Vision or one of their cannons. But they didn't help against the heat of the forge, because the change wasn't rapid enough. Think of a non-Newtonian fluid: the more force you apply to it, the more resistance you get. Not that the actual mechanism at work is even remotely related to—"

Jean held up a hand. "I'll take your word for it without reviewing the details."

Alisha said, "The point is, we're not going to beat them by ramping up the power."

"I _could_ if I wanted to," Tony countered out of professional pride. "But it's quicker and more efficient to go in through the back door."

"The back door," Jean said. "Of the millipede."

He sighed. "Yes, I regret my phrasing. What I _mean_ is, slow heat is how we destroy them. You heard about the eyeball-plant attack, right? Just after the outpost raid?"

"Yes. One could hardly miss the giant scorch mark on the lawn."

"There you have it. Li and I set that fire with this powder we came up with a few months back. A relatively low ignition point triggers a highly exothermic reaction. Not dissimilar to thermite, but with a bit more punch."

"Too much, actually," said Alisha. "We need to slow the reaction down."

"But that's straightforward," Tony said. "Once we've rebalanced a few things, you'll have your millipede-killer. Apply externally to burn through the shell, or lace the grass in front of it so it swallows some and burns out the central stalk from the inside."

"That's fantastic."

He sucked in air through his teeth. "There's a hitch, though."

"We ran through almost all of our supplies making mines and grenades," Alisha explained. "In _principle_ we can recreate everything we need, but it'll take a long time. Weeks, at least."

Jean nodded pensively. "All right. With what you have on hand right now, how many tanks could we disable?"

"That depends on how judiciously you use the powder," Tony said. "You can burn a little hole in all of them, or you can reduce one to ash completely. I recommend something in the middle."

"I can work with that."

 

* * *

 

**81 days**

"Day fifteen: my teams regroup at the camp."

"Day fifteen: my units three, eight and eleven reach the suspension bridge."

Jean shot him a dubious look. "Eleven?"

Steve took three pebbles out of his hand and set them down on the map. "Three, eight and eleven. Eleven looped wide east, outside your perimeter, and approached from the south."

"Peter sees them coming, sends up a flare, and takes down the bridge," Jean responded, placing her own pebble on the map. "The last of your troops are trapped between us and the cliffs. With the help of our fallback measures, we finish them."

"Day sixteen: my twelfth unit is three days ahead of you, approaching the river ford to the south."

Jean cleared her throat. "Vision reported ten teams."

Steve opened his hand, revealing his final pebble. "I had twelve."

"You regrouped into eleven — fine. But my people counted bodies at each engagement. If we'd been that short, we would have noticed."

"All it took was a few survivors from each of the original units and a prearranged rendezvous point."

"Steve? You're quite annoying."

"Sorry."

Jean opened her own hand, revealing her own theretofore undisclosed pebble. She set it down to the south, at the point where they expected the enemy to cross the river. "Day sixteen: following the destruction of the main enemy forces, my teams head south. Meanwhile, your twelfth unit runs into the minefield Team One planted there two weeks ago. Via some clever mechanism of Tony's, the activation of the minefield also sets off a flare, alerting us to the problem. Vision keeps tabs on the survivors until we can catch up."

Steve gave a rueful nod and dusted off his hands. He had no more pieces. "You win. Or rather, we do."

Jean didn't look all that pleased with herself, and Steve understood why. Their simulation had certain simplifying assumptions in it: in particular, that Team Humanity won every single confrontation definitively and suffered no losses. They had to start somewhere, but the war itself wasn't going to be nearly this neat.

"I don't much care for this version," Jean said. "The bridge is such a _waste_ if it goes down with no one on it. Plus, when we all end up stranded on this side, it's at least a week before anyone but Vision can reach the beta site."

"But if we pull back early enough to guarantee that we make the bridge first, there could be a lot more than three teams behind us," Steve replied.

"We have countermeasures. And if we give them something to chase, we can lure them into crossing and take a lot of them down that way."

He studied the map some more, searching for overlooked angles. "I know you don't want to put Spider-Man in the position of killing anyone—"

"He's a _child_ , Steve."

"I'm not arguing. But we could leave someone else with him."

Jean sat back and steepled her fingers. "I thought about it. I nearly put Gabriela there. But that would leave Frank and Pavel to run their second errand alone, and that's too risky."

Steve couldn't disagree. "At least the enemy is moving slowly. They're cautious. We have you to thank for that."

His hip was starting to ache, and he shifted in his chair. The meeting was almost over, after which he'd probably go back to Aaron to have it checked.

But then there came a knock at the door, and in walked Alisha and Spider-Man.

"Hi," Alisha said. "Sorry to interrupt, but we wanted to talk to you about your plans, if that's okay."

"What's on your mind?" Jean asked.

"We know — or I know, because Peter told me — that you think some of the enemy soldiers are going to try and sabotage the explosives on the bridge, and you need him to make repairs afterward." She looked from Jean to Steve and back. "You do know there's an easier way to do that, right? If I'm there, then I can make them think they succeeded without letting them actually touch anything."

Jean asked, "Isn't that a bit more Wanda's line than yours?"

"Well, spending all that time watching her work has upped my game. I can do it."

"This is a special forces unit," Steve said. "They'll be very focused."

"That actually makes it easier," Alisha replied. "If they're calm and have a clear picture of what they plan to do, then all I have to do is convince them that they already did it. And…" She paused, and visibly steeled herself. "I also know that you don't want Peter to have to destroy the bridge with enemy soldiers on it. But I'm…" She gestured awkwardly. "I mean, I could do it. If I had to. If it helped."

Jean gave a quiet sigh. "Li," she said gently, "you don't want to do that."

" _Obviously_ I don't want to do that!" she said, throwing up her hands. "But it's not like any of you want to do the stuff you're doing, either! It's safer if they don't actually touch the explosives — I know I'm right about that much. And if I'm there, at least it gives you a backup plan in case the rest of the army gets to the bridge first."

Jean shifted her attention. "Peter, by any chance, does your version of this plan free you up to join the combat teams?"

But he didn't leap at the opportunity with his usual enthusiasm. "No, I think you need me to stay with Alisha," he said, "in case it doesn't work, or if anything else goes wrong. I mean, I'd totally go with you if you said you wanted me to. But I'm guessing you won't."

Jean gave him an approving nod. "That was a very measured analysis," she said. "I appreciate the offer. Both of you. I'm not making any promises right now, but I will consider it carefully."

Once they were gone, though, Jean closed her eyes and leaned her head back. "What am I doing? This isn't what I wanted for her."

"Your friends were loyal enough to follow you here," Steve said. "Are you really that surprised?"

"You of all people understand what it means to be the one who gives the order that puts them in danger."

He leaned forward, intending to offer some kind of comforting gesture, but the motion hit a bad angle on his hip and he couldn't bite back a grunt of pain.

Jean's eyes opened quickly. "Are you all right?"

"Fine," he said, embarrassed at having given himself away like that. "It's nothing. I'm just a little sore." Her concern didn't abate, and he reluctantly added, "Tony wanted a bone sample, and Aaron warned me that those take some time to heal."

Jean cycled through quite a few expressions before she managed to return to neutrality. "I see."

"Sorry. We were talking about your problems."

"My problems aren't…" But she trailed off and gave him a rueful look. Like Steve himself, she was far more comfortable offering support than accepting it. But they were both getting better at that. "Alisha and Aaron are counting on me to bring them home safely. Killing, even in combat, carries its own form of injury. If it comes to that, I believe I will have failed."

"I understand," Steve said. "And I agree with you that one of our goals should be to keep the civilians out of combat. But she does have a good point about thwarting the sabotage team by telepathy. That's worth considering."

Jean inclined her head. "I still have a few days to get used to the idea. I imagine I'll agree with you once I've slept on it." Then she sat back in her chair and gave her understated smile. "I'm trying to decide whether it would be more awkward to ask you, or not to ask you."

Steve chuckled. "No, it's all right. There's nothing definite yet. Tony — and Alisha too, now — they're trying to find a way to use the off-switch fibers from that plant to retract the filaments that are…" He trailed off. "You know, every time I come to say these things out loud…"

"Yes, it's quite the bizarre scenario. But I follow."

"Anyway. They're looking for a way to get the stuff inside me out. But there's no guarantee they have the right tools or materials, so… I just have to wait and see." He glanced back at the door. "If you don't mind, I'd rather not spread this around any further."

"Of course," Jean said. "I understand. I'll keep my fingers crossed — discreetly."

 

* * *

 

**76 days**

Peter was moping. Again. Tony didn't have a damned clue what the problem was. Again. All he knew was that, between one day and the next, the kid had suddenly begun dripping sadness.

Lunch these days was a pretty haphazard affair. Whichever member of their new support team was on kitchen duty arranged for some food and coffee to be available, and people ate when they remembered. Tony had seen the kid heading that way some indeterminate amount of time ago, and he still hadn't returned. It called for further investigation.

Peter turned up at a picnic table, sitting with an empty plate in front of him, eyes downcast, engaged in some serious moping. Tony sat down on the opposite bench.

"Hey, kid."

He didn't even look up. "Hey, Mr. Stark."

"What's up?"

Addressed to his plate: "Nothing."

Oh _boy_.

Tony flipped through some obvious candidates for where to start — homesickness, anxiety about the upcoming war — until a different idea abruptly presented itself. He said instead, "You want to go for a walk?"

It was sufficiently off-script that Peter looked up at him in startlement. "Right now? Aren't you busy working?"

"Nah," Tony said, which was transparently false. "Well, yes, but this is also important. What do you say? Change of scenery, stretch your legs?"

"Um." Peter looked around like he expected someone to stop them, but no such obstacles arose. "Sure, I guess. Where do you want to go?"

"I'll show you. Come on."

Of course, Tony had only been to the place one time, at night, when he'd been deeply preoccupied by other matters. With a bit of luck, though, he'd found the turning point that led to the trail that went up the ridge and… yeah, this was the place.

He reached the small plateau and stepped aside, giving the kid room to pass him and head to the edge of the dropoff. The ridge continued to rise behind him; overhead, he could see the tiny shelf that he and Kel had climbed to. It was a goddamned miracle he hadn't broken his neck that night.

Peter had pulled his mask off en route, and Tony saw his expression lighten as he checked out the view. "Oh wow," he said. "I could see this hill when I was down there by the bridge, but I didn't know it had this little ledge on it."

"Not bad, right?" Tony said. "This is almost a decent place to visit sometimes."

"Sometimes."

Okay. They had come to the talking place, and now it was time for the talking.

Kel was so much better at this. Or maybe it was just that she had him well trained. All it took was a "Hi, Tony" and that look of hers, and he was spilling his guts. This was probably going to take a little more finesse.

"So something's obviously bothering you," Tony said. "I know it, you know that I know it, et cetera. If you want to talk about it, we can do that. Or we can just ditch work and hang out here for a bit. Your call."

Then, through no small amount of willpower, he shut up and waited.

Peter stood looking at the view for quite a long stretch. There was something calming, Tony knew, about being far enough above the landscape that the suspension bridge looked small.

Then, finally, he said, "Sort of a funny thing happened the other day."

"Yeah, what's that?"

"I turned sixteen." Peter shot Tony a twisted-up sort of smile, and Tony's heart plummeted. "You know, because it was my birthday like four months before Germany, and now—"

"Yeah, kid, I get it."

"Anyway." He turned back toward the ravine. The mask — Tony wondered if even he knew why he still wore it — bunched up in his hands. "At first, I'd been trying to keep track of what day it would have been," he said, "but then I lost count, and when I figured it out again yesterday, I realized I'd just missed it. So."

_Damn_. "Yeah, that's a tough one," Tony said, and cautiously joined him at the edge of the plateau. "I've lost two birthdays here, myself. You want me to spread the word, see if people can—"

"No! No, I don't want everyone to know. I just… I dunno." He shrugged. "It's weird."

"Once we get back, we get a do-over on these years, as far as the rest of the world is concerned," Tony said. "Though you'll have to get your hair cut before you see your delightful aunt again. There's no way she'll believe _that_ happened over the weekend."

"I actually thought of that," Peter said. "Or I guess that guy — the other Peter — he thought of it. He said I should take a bunch of pictures before I left so that I could match it again after."

"Not a bad idea."

"So I had that much figured out." He shrugged again, and looked away. "But there was so much I didn't think about. About how hard it was going to be to live here for ten months. And now… I _really_ want to go home. Guess that's pretty pathetic, huh."

Tony slung his arm around Peter's shoulders. "Kiddo, I have wanted to go home so badly I could cry every single day that I've been here. If that's pathetic, then sign me up. But we're close, we're _so_ close. You just gotta hang in there a little longer."

Peter was silent for another stretch, leaning a little on Tony while they both looked out at the distant ravine.

Eventually he said, "You heard — Jean told you, right? — I'm going south with Gabriela and the guys to that place where we crossed the river, so that they can set up mines in case the army gets that far."

"Yeah, she cleared it with me before she asked you."

"And then I have to stay here with Alisha and be ready to repair the explosives on the bridge, just in case her telepathy trick doesn't work. All that stuff is important. I understand why I can't go with you. I just wish I wasn't losing track of everybody for so long when you go out to meet the army. I heard you aren't even taking Aaron this time."

"We need to cover a lot of distance quickly," Tony said. "There's no good way to set up and secure a base where he could stay, and Jean doesn't want to risk bringing him into combat."

"But what if someone gets too badly hurt to keep up?"

Tony knew he wasn't going to like this. "The injured get left behind for Vision to pick up on one of his sweeps."

Peter's shoulders tightened. "Well. Aaron's pretty angry about it."

"I wish I had a better answer for you, kid. Really I do. But this is the job. We take the risks, because someone has to."

"Just… _please_ try to be careful this time. The last time I let you go on a mission without me—"

"Hold up — you _let me_ —"

"—you came back with a broken collarbone and half-dead from pneumonia!"

" _So_ much to unpack here, but let's start with, you don't _let_ me go on missions. I'm the one who lets _you_ go on missions!"

"And I never once broke a bone or caught pneumonia, did I? So maybe I'm not the one who needs permission to do things."

"Wow. Kid turns sixteen, suddenly thinks he's the boss. You gunning for Jean's job, while you're at it?"

"Maybe!"

Tony pursued the bickering to entertainingly ridiculous levels, and Peter's resulting improved mood lasted all the way back to camp.

Not that his job was finished, though. As soon as Peter was safely dispatched to the forge to help Alisha, Tony tore through the camp until he'd located Kel.

"Hi," he said. "I have a favor to ask, and it's last-minute and an imposition and also extremely important."

That stop, and the one he made next, both proved fruitful.

Peter, like Tony, had a dorm to himself now. After dinner and the traditional social hours had ended and everyone else had retired, Tony met up with Jean and Kel — his co-conspirators, the ones who'd been allowed to see Peter's face — and headed for the kid's room.

Kel, who didn't quite have the hang of knocking, walked right on in, and Tony and Jean followed. They found Peter maskless, sitting on his cot, clearly on the verge of sinking back into a mope.

Earlier, Kel had handed over the apples that Tony'd asked her to pick, and he tossed one Peter's way as soon as he crossed the threshold. The kid's hand moved to intercept it before his head even turned.

He blinked at the apple in his hand like he wasn't sure how it had gotten there. "Oh hey," he said. "Mr. Stark. You guys. What's…"

"Now, you said you didn't want _everyone_ to know," Tony said, "and clearly this is a far cry from everyone, so I think I'm perfectly in bounds here."

"Wha…?"

"Happy birthday, Peter," Jean said, with just the right amount of casual. She and Tony made themselves at home on Peter's cot, since after all there was nowhere else to sit.

Kel was approaching this particular human custom with all the enthusiasm of an amateur anthropologist. "Do we all make this statement?" she asked Tony.

"Correct."

She cleared her throat. "Happy Birth Day, Peter."

"Uh. Thanks?" He looked around the room like he still wasn't caught up on current events, and somehow settled on Kel as the least confusing person to talk to. "Don't you celebrate birthdays?"

Kel shrugged, and took a seat on the floor. "My creation is my father's accomplishment, not mine. j'Brenithi celebrate the… the word for a year after something?"

"Anniversary," said Tony.

"Yes. The anniversary of the day we take our name, or the day we become _shorath_. A victory in war. Things like this. How to celebrate depends on the event, and how many years. One year after a very large event, we might take a small scar for it."

"Uh…"

"Don't worry," Tony said. "We explained to her that in human society, as a general rule, we don't mix celebrations and lacerations. Speaking of which — Jean, you brought the knives, right?"

"Of course."

For the apples, obviously. She pulled them out of various jacket pockets and set them down on the cot. Tony handed over her apple.

Peter took a knife, and looked down shyly at the apple still in his other hand. "Look, you guys don't have to—"

"We know we don't have to," Tony said. "Doing it anyway. Eat your apple." Then he shifted his attention to Jean and said, "I've been thinking: we've gotten to know each other pretty well, right? But I still don't know your last name."

She carved a narrow slice from her apple and took a bite. "Interesting. I know yours."

"Yes, _everyone_ knows my last name. That's hardly indicative." He turned to Kel. "Do _you_ know her last name?"

"Yes."

"Oh, Kel knows it? So it's personal?"

Peter tried to hide a laugh behind his hand, and didn't do a very good job of it.

Jean gave her patented secretly amused eyeroll. "My father is Chinese, Tony. If you play the odds, it won't take you long to guess."

"Will you tell me when I get it right?"

"No."

He threw up his hands. "So it _is_ personal. No, I get it. That's fine. Let's try this: tell me something about where you grew up."

And on they went. The humans ate their apples while Kel politely averted her eyes, and they all talked about… not things they missed, specifically, but good Earth memories. (Tony's were about Pepper. As a basic survival mechanism, he tried not to think about her too much beyond the fact that she was safe on Earth, but for this he could recall a few more things.)

When it came around to Peter, he talked about his school friends and his clubs, and the sorts of views and hidey-holes that were only accessible to a person who could climb buildings with their fingertips. At a couple points, Jean looked like she was experiencing secondhand vertigo. Kel was held rapt by every detail.

Once the chit-chat wound down, Tony announced, "As this is a birthday celebration, there is a tradition to be attended to."

Kel sat up straight. "Yes! I learned this on Earth. A gift is required."

"Hey, you picked the apples," Tony said quickly. "You're good."

She wrinkled her nose. "This is not a gift, this is an unfortunate biological necessity. To participate correctly, I also brought a gift."

She stood up and unclipped a sheathed dagger from her boot. Most of her weapons were brutally practical in design, but this one had some decoration: both the sheath and the hilt had a delicate twisting pattern of gold.

"A friend gave this to me on the day I became _shorath_ ," she said to Peter, "and now I give it to you. The blade functions, but it was never used. The purpose is to decorate. If you ever visit my home, I'll show you when to wear it."

Peter's fingers traced the gold inlay. "It's great," he said softly. "It's really great. No one ever gave me something like this before. Thank you."

Jean was up next. She rolled up her jacket sleeve, revealing a bracelet that Tony had never seen her wear before. It was made of braided leather cord, with five beads of a black and grey stone knotted into it. She slipped it off her wrist and passed it to Peter.

"My brother made this for me," she said. "The stones are called snowflake obsidian. He polished and shaped them himself. It was taken, of course, when I first arrived here, but Kel arranged to get it back to me." She gave her gentle smile. "It's been my little piece of Earth for a long time, and now I think you should have it."

Peter accepted it with all due solemnity.

To give him a few seconds to process, Tony asked Jean, "Does your brother still make jewelry?"

"Perhaps he might have," Jean replied. "He died some years ago."

Peter's head came up quickly. "Oh wow. Okay, that's amazing, you giving me this, but I can't… I can't—"

She closed his hand and guided it back toward him. "Then hold onto it for me. Once we're all back home, I'm sure Tony can arrange for us to see each other again."

"Okay. Um. Okay. Thank you."

"Well, I threw you the party," Tony said, "so that's the first half of my present. I was trying to figure out what else I could give you, but the problem with this planet is that I have no actual possessions."

"It's okay, Mr. Stark, you don't have to—"

"Hush, I'm not done. That's why the second half of my present is this. When we get home, first there's going to be some yelling about proper portal protocol, because I am still not entirely over the fact that you're _here_." He glared, and Peter looked down sheepishly. "But once that's settled, you and I are going to set up regular meetings, I don't know, maybe a couple of times a month, to check in about tech and how your suit is working for you, what kinds of crimefighting you've been up to, and whatever else you need. You're into this superhero business now, for better or for worse, and some of that's my responsibility. So I'm going to make damned sure you never have to go it alone. Sound good?"

Tony had been, privately, maybe a little bit nervous, because who the hell was he to insert himself into the kid's life like that? But Peter was beaming like the sun, so maybe it was okay.

"Yeah," he said. "That'd be great. Thanks."

"Happy birthday, kiddo."

Then Kel said, "I think there's also a ceremonial chant?"

Tony and Jean looked at each other. "Yes. The ceremonial chant."

Peter groaned. "Oh god. No, you guys really don't need to… to chant."

"Of course we do," said Tony. "It's tradition. Kel, do you know the words?"

"No."

"Jean?"

"On it."

They performed the ceremonial chant. Peter spent most of it with his head buried in his hands, occasionally muttering, "Oh _god_ ," but Tony assured Kel afterward that that was just an expression of respect for the passing of the completed year. Then the three party guests said their goodnights, and left Peter with a few more things to hold onto than he'd had before.

If Tony did say so himself? A damned fine day's work.

 

* * *

 

**75 days**

Steve looked around the table at his team, and knew that they were ready.

"We're splitting into two groups," he said. "Clint and Tony are with me, Natasha and Sam are with Jean. We'll start off together, heading northeast. Once we cross the barrier, we'll sweep in opposite directions: Jean's team bearing left, mine right. The objective is to locate and destroy as many of the enemy units as we can, starting from the closest and working our way outward."

"We will be outgunned and outnumbered," Jean said. "So we have to be smarter and better prepared. We have to disable the tanks, contain and kill the soldiers, then move on quickly and do it again. Each and every engagement has to result in a definitive victory." She paused, and smiled. "Not to put us under any undue pressure or anything."

"Take head counts if you can," Steve continued. "There's a chance that they'll try splitting up and regrouping to confuse us. Let's not fall for it. Right now, they're moving slower than they need to, but that could change at any time. Our timing is fluid and will come down to a matter of judgment, but the plan is for all of us to be back at the bridge before any of their teams can make it. If that means we have to fall back before we take out all of their units, so be it: we can finish them when they reach the bridge."

"Vision — you're our radio and our tracker," Jean said. "At least to begin with, I want you moving between our two teams, providing us with updates on each other and on the enemy's position. However, your absolute top priority is to make sure that Alisha and Aaron get across the bridge safely. If it looks like any teams are going to evade our sweep and cut them off, you leave us behind and you help them first."

"I understand," he said.

"Gabriela, we've already discussed your team's next assignment. Peter will go south with you for security."

Sam asked, "Where's Kel during all this?"

Kel replied, "I make my own sweep, wider. Target enemy teams that move outside your range."

"By yourself?"

"Yes." She glanced at Jean. "I… am not completely happy to leave you alone. But it might be the best way to get as many of them as possible."

"Today we get our gear together and prepare," Jean concluded. "We depart first thing tomorrow."

Everyone knew a dismissal when they heard it. The group began to disperse. Tony, however, remained hovering on the perimeter. When Steve looked his way, he beckoned.

"So: color-coded threads," Tony announced when they'd reached some privacy behind the shower building. "Red grows. We don't want that. Blue retracts, but doesn't destroy. Green duplicates — that's how we got the engravings. Orange… it's complicated, but orange is the basis of their power conduction." He paused, and shifted awkwardly. "Um. Okay, here's the thing. What I've got right now… there's an outside chance it reduces the filaments enough for the serum to finish the job, like you said. But there's a very good chance it kills you in the process. Good enough that I'm not going to be the guy who does it to you."

Steve drew a slow breath. It wasn't entirely unexpected, this piece of news. He was okay. He just needed a second to be sure.

Tony gestured toward the infirmary and added, "I mean, my notes are just sitting there on the counter, if you can find someone who's willing—"

"Tony." Steve assembled his next words carefully, and was a bit surprised to discover that he believed them. "If it was our only chance, I'd say the risk was worth it. But it's not. We have a solid battle plan. Getting my old life back isn't worth dying over. It definitely isn't worth you killing me over."

"I'm sure the solution's in there somewhere, it's just taking me time to get there. I have to invent the instruments I need as I go, and—"

"I understand."

"Aaron's going to bring all my notes and materials when he has to evacuate. I'll keep working on it, I promise. I'm sorry I couldn't—"

" _Tony_."

He broke off.

"I'm all right," Steve said. "Honestly. I know you're doing everything you can, and I appreciate it. Of course it would have been nice to have my strength back, but we're going to be fine without it. _I'll_ be fine without it."

It was the truth. Still a somewhat shaky truth, perhaps, but one that grew more solid each day. If this was reality now, this version of him, then it was the reality in which he'd begun to patch things up with Tony, in which he and Jean could trust and respect each other's leadership, in which he could still damned well defend the camp and the rest of his team to the best of his abilities.

It was far from perfect, and he was still grieving his losses. But if this was reality, then he was going to give it his best shot.

Tony nodded and looked away for a moment. "So," he said, "I'm on your team."

"I hope that's okay."

He looked Steve up and down. "Yeah, I think we can make that work."

"I think so, too. Now let's go finish off this army."

 


	48. Chapter 48

North of the camp, the terrain grew steeper. There was still enough topsoil to sustain the forest, but the ground was uneven, and every now and then the trees were interrupted by a sudden ridge or cleft in the rocks. There was no chance of getting into a smooth hiking rhythm: when they weren't dodging trees, they were climbing hills or circumnavigating rocky shelves that the horses couldn't manage.

Natasha wasn't surprised that Jean had chosen the harder route for herself and her team. The three of them — Jean, Natasha and Sam — were tasked with a counterclockwise sweep that would carry them north into the mountains, finally ending with a westward turn toward the ravine. They had no climbing gear to speak of, and it wouldn't have helped the horses anyway. All they could do to prepare was to bring jackets and extra blankets for when the temperature dropped. The rest of the trip was down to legwork.

The terrain did come with certain advantages, however, since the enemy had to navigate it with tanks. With their millipede's legs, the tanks were quite good at creeping up and down the rocky slopes, but they couldn't manage narrow passes or sharp ridges. That made their response to obstacles somewhat predictable.

Thanks to Vision's scouting, they'd located the first of the enemy units just after dawn. This particular group had no Geckos and no fireball squids — just fifty standard-issue Mjentur and a single Gold-Tip, and four tanks.

A minimal complement, in other words. Natasha recognized a sacrificial lamb when she saw one. Humphrey wasn't expecting all of his advance units to make it to the bridge — he just wanted to wear down the opposition.

If he was prepared for losses, Natasha was happy to oblige.

The most reasonable, rational way for a team of three to take on a platoon of fifty was at night. The darkness provided cover, and at least some of the enemy would presumably be sleeping. That was what they were expected to do, which was why, instead, they struck in broad daylight.

It was one of those places where the trees opened up around a sudden gash in the rocks. A shallow pass, lined with gravel and wide enough to accommodate the tanks, extended a few hundred yards along a roughly north-south line. It was an easy shortcut through the forest's usual inconveniences. Jean guessed, and Natasha agreed, that the enemy would take advantage of it.

Such a convenient piece of landscape was also a good place for an ambush, and the platoon commander sensed that. First he sent advance scouts to poke around for landmines and other traps. When they came up empty, the bulk of the platoon began their march down the pass, shadowed by teams of perimeter guards along either side.

Natasha was already in position under cover along the eastern edge. The first batch of sentries was going to reach her position just before the leading tank passed beneath her. This was going to take some delicate timing.

Her bow was on the ground at her feet; her knife was in her hand. Footsteps approaching from her right. Only two sets. Moving slowly. Swords likely in hand, alert for attacks.

Instinct told her _move_ , and she sprang up and slashed. The knife cut through gristle almost as easily as it did air. A hot splash of blood and the first Mjentur dropped. The second one had time to draw a startled breath and raise his sword before she cracked him on the muzzle with her armored gauntlet. His shout of warning died in his throat, and her blade found his jugular a moment later.

Quickly back to her vantage point. There'd been no cries of alarm from the other side of the pass, so she had to assume that Jean had fared equally well. The first tank had passed her position, but she still had a shot.

The most vulnerable point of any weapons system was its human operators — or, if not human, then the closest available equivalent. Jean's team had splashier options for attacking the tanks, but this time they were going with the subtle approach. Natasha's projectiles, more like darts than proper arrows, had been rigged by Clint and Tony first to attach a small packet of Tony's slow-burning powder to the hull of the tank, then to dangle a pod of Kel's poison through the resulting hole. Natasha tagged the first and second tanks in line; Jean, further back, took the other two.

Next, a quick detour to neutralize the second pair of perimeter guards. Then she ran south to rendezvous with Sam.

The sides of the pass were rocky and uneven. A person, moving cautiously, could find places to crouch out of sight. Natasha picked and crawled her way down the east wall until she was nearly at the bottom, poised behind a small outcropping. Across from her, Sam was already in position.

He gave her a thumbs-up, and she nodded back. If his part of this hadn't worked, the two of them were about to look rather foolish.

The Mjentur on escort duty realized something was wrong when the tanks began to go off course. Some of them tried to amble over top of their neighboring column of soldiers, or up the side of the pass, while others ground to a halt.

They observed the problem, but they didn't get much time to analyze it, because that was the cue for Sam and Natasha to break cover. Brandishing weapons and howling war cries, they charged.

The Gold-Tip tried to shout a warning, too late. The rank and file could only respond one way to such a challenge: they drew their own weapons and charged right back.

Really such a shame, then, that Sam had activated all those barrier disks lining the walls of the pass. The Mjentur charged into a space that was filled with near-invisible jellyfish threads. At least a dozen were sliced to pieces before the rest managed to cut their momentum.

Natasha and Sam broke off their own charge and veered in opposite directions. Her boots dug into the gravel and she used her free hand for added momentum to propel herself back up the hill. Most of the surviving soldiers followed suit.

Precisely as expected. That was why, earlier that morning, Sam and Natasha had lined exactly those stretches of the treeline with grenades rigged with tripwires. The explosives went off with spectacular concussion, and the blasts and flying shrapnel cut down at least a dozen more on each side.

Now it got tricky. Natasha bypassed the region still swarming with barrier threads and skirted one of her own tripwires, and threw herself into a skid back down the hill. The soldiers at the back of the formation who'd been clever enough not to run into any traps were getting picked off by Jean's arrows. But the tanks provided a lot of cover, and there was a persistent crew that had dug in. Natasha regrouped with Sam, and together they got to work on the survivors.

The Gold-Tip was among those still standing. He correctly identified a lost cause, and made a break for it to the north.

Jean had predicted this, too, which was why she'd put herself on that side of the pass. She broke cover to intercept.

The Mjentur were disciplined, and they were tough. Not a single one went down easily. Staccato cracks of metal on wood rang out as Jean duelled the Gold-Tip, but Natasha couldn't help. Couldn't break focus. Not yet.

She and Sam cut their way through the Mjentur line. After months of training together, she could feel his moves almost as instinctively as her own. Enemy after enemy fell to their blades.

Then abruptly there were no more enemies left. There was nothing around them but the dead and the dying.

Natasha took a quick breath and let her sword arm sag. Every muscle was on fire. Beside her, Sam's chest was heaving and his brow was dripping with sweat. But the day still wasn't done, because the sounds of the final battle still echoed from beyond the stalled tank.

Together, they broke into a sprint.

When combat involved edged weapons, usually the first strike was also the last one. For a duel between sword and spear to last more than a handful of seconds, either the opponents were incredibly well matched, or someone wasn't trying.

A lack of effort clearly wasn't the issue here.

Jean's face was bloody and the Gold-Tip was limping. Round and round they fought, slashing, stabbing, blocking, dodging. Deadlocked.

It shouldn't have worked out that way. Jean should have lost, and relatively quickly. She'd trained to fight, but the Gold-Tip had trained to kill. (Natasha recognized one of her own.) He was stronger, more experienced, more ruthless.

But Jean had more to fight for.

Seconds, just seconds away. Natasha ran with everything she had. A few seconds more. But it was a few seconds too long. The deadlock broke, and Jean was the one who broke it. A flurry of cuts and counter-cuts ended with her spearpoint gouging open his sword arm. The sword dropped. Jean cracked him across the jaw with her staff, then drove her spearpoint deep into his guts. The Gold-Tip dropped to his knees, and she finished with a slice to his throat.

Natasha and Sam jogged to a halt. The three of them took a moment to breathe.

"Would it be unseemly," Jean panted, "if I fell over?"

"Nah," Sam replied, "but you might not be too happy about what you land on."

"Fair." She sucked in air again, breathed out again, a little more in control. "Are all the rest…"

"It's finished," Natasha said.

"Good."

Sam dug a field dressing out of an interior pocket and opened the package. Jean blinked at him vacantly for a moment as he approached, until it registered that her face was still bleeding.

"I don't think it's that deep," she said, though Natasha wasn't sure what she based that on.

He tilted her chin toward the light. "Not as bad as it could have been, but it still needs taking care of."

The slice ran vertically from the top of her cheekbone down almost to the corner of her mouth. It was jarring to look at, but ultimately superficial. Half an inch higher, and she might have lost the eye.

Jean ran her fingers down the line, not quite touching it. "I seem to be stealing Kel's look. She might find that amusing."

"Aaron won't," Sam said, not sounding terribly amused himself.

"Valid point." Jean took over applying pressure with a grimace. "Is anyone else hurt?"

"I'm good," said Sam. "Nat?"

Natasha began to allow her own injuries to register. Nothing serious: scrapes and bruises, and a few cuts that had slipped past her body armor. They were all going to be sore the next day, but that was nothing compared with how this could have gone.

"I'm fine," she said. "We were lucky."

There would be more chores to deal with later: notably, recovering any explosives that hadn't been triggered. For the moment, however, the priorities were first aid and rest. They had a campsite set up a short hike away, where they'd left the horses and most of their gear. That was where they were supposed to head next.

But first they took a moment to contemplate their handiwork. The remnants of the platoon were scattered along the length of the pass. Toward the south end, where the soldiers had fallen not to sword strokes but to severed limbs, most of the moaning had stopped, but it would probably take some time for the last of them to bleed out.

No war was ever clean. Not from ground level.

"It was a good plan," Sam said. "Got the job done."

Jean inclined her head. "One down."

 

* * *

 

The vulnerable targets on the tanks were quite small. Clint didn't see this as a problem. The tanks themselves were heavily armored. Tony didn't see this as a problem.

Steve was amazed at how few problems they had.

In the course of his experiments with the tanks, Tony had discovered a flaw: an explosive detonation directed at one of the extended cannons just before it fired could cause, as he put it, a catastrophic overload in the power system. In other words, the fireball — and possibly all of the fireballs simultaneously — would go off inside the tank instead of outside. Tony and Alisha had built a metal ring that would hook onto the cannon as it extended and secure a grenade in the correct position. If it worked as well in the field as it had on the testing ground, they were going to make a hell of a statement.

Vision had dropped in earlier that morning with a position update. Thanks to his reconnaissance, they knew exactly where they were going to cross paths with the first enemy unit. This region didn't have any particularly good places to mount an ambush — or, as Steve preferred to think of it, every place was equally good for mounting an ambush. The terrain was level, and the forest was dense. His team would have plenty of cover, while the enemy forces couldn't easily form up and reinforce each other.

The plan was set. The three of them split up and took their positions.

Steve could hear the many overlapping footfalls of the army as they advanced. He was the one who had to make the first move. The timing was in his hands. (He was _almost_  not thinking about how much easier this would have been with his abilities intact.)

The tanks were in a diamond formation, with the majority of the troops between them. The leading point of the diamond crawled its way past Steve's position. He pressed his back a little more tightly to the tree, and stilled his fingers where they were fidgeting on the bowstring. A little more time… let the first one pass, let the second one close in…

He rounded the tree and broke into a run, drew back the bowstring and launched the grenade arrow over top of the tank and into the Mjentur formation. No time to stop and assess the damage — by the time the explosion sounded, he'd already outpaced the second tank and pulled the second arrow from his belt. Turned and fired on the run — more cries of pain and alarm.

Then another blast as Tony began his own run on the other side of the formation.

Third arrow ready, heading for cover. The two tanks Steve had just strafed were readying their cannons. Even if he ducked behind a tree, at this range the blast would probably kill him.

Luckily, Clint could do a ring toss with the best of them. From his perch up in the trees, he targeted the cannons with Tony and Alisha's tank-killing gadgets.

The results were spectacular.

Three of the four tanks went up in fireballs that were blinding bright even through his eyelids. The blasts couldn't have been louder if it had been his own skull that had exploded. Steve hit the dirt and threw his arms over his head as searing hot air and flaming shrapnel blew past.

No one could have survived that. No one.

When his vision came back and the ringing in his ears had faded, Steve crept out from cover and checked for the rest of his team. Clint was working his way down through branches whose leaves had been burned to a crisp, but he himself looked unsinged. On the far side of the battlefield, Tony was dusting himself off.

Good. Everyone was okay.

The exploding tanks had sent ironwood fragments flying. Every nearby tree had pieces embedded. The one tank that hadn't exploded had been thoroughly torn to shreds by its neighbors. The space between them, which had been occupied by Mjentur soldiers, now contained mostly… pieces.

Clint dropped from the lowest layer of branches and landed in a crouch. Steve retrieved his bow and the unused grenade arrow, and started toward him. Tony was also headed that way, working his way around the perimeter of the debris field.

"Nice aim," Steve said.

Clint shrugged. "It's what I do. Nice ticking 'em off."

"According to some people, that's what _I_ do."

He chuckled. "I'm itching to get my bow back from Stark. What's keeping him, anyway?"

They both turned to look. Tony was just beyond the tank that hadn't blown, staring at something that Steve couldn't see.

"Tony, what—"

But then Tony drew his sword and started backpedalling fast. "A little backup here!" he called.

Clint grabbed Steve's bow and Steve drew his sword, and they ran.

Somehow, _somehow_ , one of the Mjentur was still alive. He had burns on his body, a sword in his hand, and golden tips on his horns. Tony caught the first swing of the broadsword on his own blade and managed to deflect it, but the force of the blow drove him backward.

Clint paused long enough to aim and fire. The arrow sang past Steve's ear and struck the Gold-Tip in the chest where his armor had been torn away. He didn't so much as flinch.

Steve ran faster.

Tony was as good with a sword as any of them, but the Gold-Tip was running on pure rage. He hammered at Tony's guard, driving him back and back until Tony's foot caught on a piece of debris and he went over backward. The Gold-Tip kicked the sword from his hand and raised his own weapon high—

Tony's hands came up defensively—

And Steve rammed the Gold-Tip in the side with everything he had. They both lost their swords as they hit the ground together. An elbow clipped his temple and Steve saw sparks, but it didn't matter. He pulled a knife. Stabbed. Blade met flesh. Distantly an impact jarred him — he was being punched in the ribs. Still didn't matter. He stabbed again, and again, until the body beneath him stopped moving.

Incongruously, he noticed a tapping on his shoulder. Steve managed to work his way back from wherever he'd gone, and looked up.

Tony said, "Not to micromanage or anything, but I'm pretty sure you got him."

"Oh," Steve said. He looked. Tony had a point. "All right."

Tony offered his hand, and Steve clambered back to his feet.

"You okay?" Steve asked him.

"Yeah," Tony said. "Nice timing there. Appreciated."

"Of course."

Clint cleared his throat. "Or, you know, you could have _not_ blocked my line of fire. But whatever, sometimes you just gotta stab something."

Steve sheathed his knife and scrubbed his hand on his trousers. They were carrying that powder of Kel's that mostly removed bloodstains. He would clean up once they got back to their campsite.

"Is anyone hurt?" he asked.

Clint jerked his chin in Tony's direction. "Looks like Stark got clipped."

Tony grimaced and looked down at his arm. The outer edge of his forearm had a bloody slice.

"It's not deep, it's just being dramatic."

"I'll be the judge of that."

"Yeah, who made Barton the medic again?"

"I can sew," Clint said. "I darn my own socks."

"Wow. We're all going to die."

(The banter had an edge to it, but it was just banter, not hostility.)

Steve stepped back from the Gold-Tip corpse, and took one last look at the battlefield. There were no more hints of movement. Just wreckage and charred remains.

"One down," he said.

 

* * *

 

Natasha didn't spend a lot of time resting on her laurels.

The team found their campsite just as they left it. While Sam tended to Jean's face, Natasha studied the surrounding terrain.

Once she'd been stitched up, Jean came alongside her. "Problem?" she asked.

"Nothing concrete," Natasha replied. "Just a thought."

"Yes. If we aren't being followed yet, we will be soon."

 

* * *

 

This was _exhausting_.

Tony wished so badly that he had his suit. If he'd had his suit, he could have ended this whole war inside of an hour. Wooden tanks? _Please_. A couple of well-placed missiles — done.

But no. They had to plod along, inch by inch and tank by tank.

It had been Jean's idea to switch up the tactics from one engagement to the next. Tony sometimes wondered if Humphrey wasn't still in her head a little, not that he was asshole enough to say so to her face. In any event, Steve had laid out a different attack plan this time, softening up the enemy with poison first instead of going straight to explosions. Though they'd still ended with explosions. The mission had been a success, and the three of them had walked away from smoking wrecks and enough dead meat to keep the local scavengers happy for days.

They'd been lucky enough to avoid any major injuries so far. Everyone had cuts and bruises, and Tony was dealing with a minor shrapnel situation from that last exploding tank. But there'd been nothing incapacitating, and considering the odds they were facing, that was just this side of miraculous.

He really, _really_ resented having to be grateful for the amount of pain he was in.

They retrieved their gear and the horses, and immediately set off on the day's final hike. The afternoon was waning, and they wanted to put some solid distance between themselves and the battleground before settling in for the night. En route, Vision made his daily drop-in, and reported that Jean's team was also doing fine. They were moving a little slower, being up in the mountains where the terrain was worse, and weren't expected to hit their second tank group until the next day.

Knowledge was power, and never more so than during a war. That made Vision their secret weapon. He could verify the locations of all the enemy units, carry status updates between Jean and Steve's teams, make a couple circuits of the labor camp to check for sneak attacks, and zip across the ravine to the beta site all in one day. That sort of information flow was mission-critical — maybe even more so than his ability to smash things.

As such, Jean had set up very strict Vision protocols. He performed his reconnaissance from high in the air, well out of range of rust bombs. He dropped in on each team at irregular intervals, and only while they were on the move, the idea being to make it as difficult as possible for the enemy to take a shot at him.

Per procedure, Vision stayed only long enough to deliver a few sentences of news and confirm that Steve's team would continue to bear east, then he took off again.

The afternoon light was beginning to fade, and they made camp soon after. Everyone was quiet, because everyone was exhausted, but they couldn't rest yet because there were still chores to do.

They did their best each night to put their backs to a wall, since it was entirely possible that the enemy had deployed scouting units, and Steve wanted to see them coming. This time around, Barton had found them a sequence of steep rocky steps to nest beneath. The horses, George and Non-George, went about their evening graze, then settled down in a heap against the rock. The humans surrounded the site with layers of snares, tripwires and other goodies, and bedded down just in front of them.

Barton spent some time digging splinters out of Tony's arm and side. Luckily none of them had gone deep enough that Tony had to subject himself to Barton's infamous darning skills. Once that annoyance had been taken care of, the three of them drank their water and ate their mush in silence.

"Should keep better watch," Kel said, and every one of them leapt to their feet and brandished the closest weapon.

" _Don't_ do that!" Tony snapped, and stuck his sword back in its sheath. "I have asked you not to do that!"

Barton lowered his bow. "You nearly got shot in the face," he told her.

"You nearly lost an arrow," Kel countered. "I was fine. Is there water?"

"We didn't expect to see you here," Steve said, and handed over his waterskin. "Everything okay?"

Once Tony's heart quit trying to hammer its way out of his chest, he realized that Kel looked more exhausted and worn than he'd ever seen her. She drained Steve's water, then began the process of sitting down, which was not easy given that she seemed to have a sword strapped to every available surface.

"Went south," Kel said, and the fatigue was audible in her voice. "A team was in a boat. To go around you. Tanks, two twenty-fives of Mjentur. Three days to the bridge when I found. Destroyed. Leave again soon, east and north. Look for trails."

Tony and Steve exchanged looks.

"Or maybe you rest up here a bit," Steve said pointedly.

"Not time. Other problems."

Kel's clothes were bloodstained and torn, which was not exactly a shock — so were Tony's. But there was a particularly gaping tear mid-back in both her jacket and her shirt… and when she sat back, Tony saw that it had a twin on her stomach.

"Jesus, what happened?" he asked, and plucked at the torn fabric.

"Stabbed."

It did occur to him that he was picking at her clothing in a manner that he himself would find highly objectionable, but the severity of the damage was shocking the sense out of him. "Yeah, I don't think this is stabbed anymore," Tony said. "This is _impaled_. Are you all right? Is there anything—"

Then suddenly her hand was clamped around his wrist.

"Tony?" Kel said. "Don't touch my skin right now."

"Got it," he said quickly. Her grip was _very_ strong. "No problem. Sorry."

"Not offended. Just to warn."

Steve and Barton both looked like they were trying to decide how much of an emergency this was. Everyone was sitting very still.

"Glad to hear it," Tony said. Then, after a careful pause, he asked, "Does that mean I get my arm back?"

"Ah."

Kel's brow furrowed, like she was trying to figure out how to transmit the correct instructions. After another long beat, her grip relaxed.

Tony retrieved his hand, feeling fortunate to find it still attached. "Sorry," he said again. "I'll take that as a very healthy reminder of how scary you can be."

"Assuming you're not actually here to eat us," Barton said, "what brings you to the neighborhood?"

"Talk to Vision," she said. She seemed to be catching her breath, but her English was still choppy. "Warn. Did he come yet?"

"Yeah, about an hour ago, while we were still on the road."

Kel let out a couple of blistering syllables that any family-friendly translation program would have been obliged to bleep out.

"What's wrong?" Steve asked her. "What do you need to warn him about?"

"The… those ones." She traced the tip of an imaginary horn.

"Gold-Tips."

"They hunt him. They know we saw the tanks, we know his weapon doesn't work, we know they can hurt him. So they expect we won't make him fight the tank groups. They… agree to lose a small number of groups, if it gives the chance to destroy him."

Barton scoffed. "Well, good luck with that."

"Yes. Good luck. This is what I wanted to warn."

Kel reached into the depths of her jacket and dug out a handful of some kind of fabric. It was done in a camouflage pattern, and had the texture of a fine mesh.

"What is it?" Tony asked.

She handed it to him, and he noted that it was oddly cool to the touch.

"The Nyth are good at tech problems," she said. "They know a lot about our universe. To disguise from… not sight, other types of…" Her hand wiggled back and forth.

"Other bands of the EM spectrum?" Tony suggested. "Infrared, that sort of thing? Heat?"

"Yes. Heat. How he searches, yes? They can disguise."

This was something Jean had insisted on testing before their campaign began, and Tony suspected that Kel's ego was still a little stung. Kel was a stealth and evasion expert — witness her repeated attempts to give Tony a heart attack — but she had no defense against Vision's enhanced eyes. He could track any warm body through the forest simply by spotting their heat signature.

But the flipside of that was that if Vision _didn't_ see any IR hotspots, he would probably assume that the region was clear.

Tony passed the fabric on, and Steve took a look at it.

"Even if this blocks them from a casual flyover," Steve said, "they can't possibly travel this way. Vision would see the motion, or hear them."

"True," Kel said. "Only works if they wait where he will be. Jean made this harder. Probably why it didn't happen yet."

"We'll warn him as soon as he makes another trip tomorrow," Steve said. "Unless you want to stay with us and talk to him yourself?"

"Can't."

"Are you—"

"Can't. Help you with your problem, then leave."

They all squirmed a bit like they'd been caught at something.

"Oh, you know about that," Barton said.

"Of course."

Earlier that evening — shortly after Vision had left, in fact — Barton had reported catching a glimpse of light glinting off of some kind of scope, or possibly a piece of armor. While Tony and Steve hadn't seen anything, they certainly weren't going to argue the point. They were being hunted. Steve had guessed that they were going to get hit that night, and apparently Kel agreed.

"The fact that you ambled into our campsite without so much as a whisper isn't encouraging," Barton said. "I'm insulted on behalf of my tripwires."

Kel shrugged. "They were fine. Still there."

"You being here might make them rethink their plans," Steve noted.

"Didn't see me," Kel said. "Won't. I'll stay out of sight, help when they attack."

"If you're sure you're up for…" He trailed off at her expression. "Okay."

"I love this Human word, 'okay'," Kel said, sounding a little more like herself. "It might be my favorite of all your words, because it doesn't mean anything. Sometimes it means 'I agree', sometimes it means 'I don't agree but I pretend to', sometimes 'I don't agree at all', sometimes 'I don't care'."

"Well—"

She stood and dusted herself off. "Sometimes it means 'good', sometimes 'not very good', sometimes 'terrible'. Sometimes a question, sometimes also the answer to the question. There is no content at all. But you say it all the time, and you understand what you mean. I love this." With that parting observation, she faded into the shadows.

Her departure left the conversation in a dead zone.

Eventually, Steve said, "Should we get this attack over with?"

"Might as well," Tony replied.

The plan barely even deserved to be called a plan. Tony and Steve spread out their bedrolls and faked sleep, while Barton sat up for the first watch. That was it.

Tony really hated this sort of thing. He had to lie there and do absolutely nothing until either a tripwire was triggered or someone tried to slit his throat. This stuff — the lying in wait stuff — this was not what he did. He wanted to be _doing_ something. He wanted to be _building_ something. He wanted motion detectors. IR cameras. Fucking laser grids. _Security tech_ , goddammit.

He lay there counting things he wanted and couldn't have while the last of the light vanished.

Approximately eight lifetimes later, there was… a rustle. Maybe. Tony's hand was clenched on the hilt of his sword. Across from him, Steve met his eyes and gave… Tony was pretty sure that was supposed to be a reassuring _blink_.

Whatever. His hand was starting to hurt, and he forced himself to let go and flex his fingers. _Just jump us already and get it over with_.

A bit more rustling. Getting closer. Sounds that could have been nothing, but could have also been someone very stealthily stepping over a tripwire.

After an eternity of waiting, everything happened at once. Barton stood and drew and fired, and a body hit the ground behind Steve. It tripped a snare as it fell, and a grenade went off with a flash and a deafening bang. Tony and Steve sprang to their feet, and the three of them closed ranks. Steve had his sword and shield, and Barton traded bow for spear.

The pitch blackness worked against them. Barton kicked over the little pitcher of on-fluid, and up in the first layer of branches, strings of vine-lights began to switch on.

The light showed two attackers left. Both Gold-Tips. Both inside the defensive perimeter. They had swords, and wore body armor including helmets and full face coverings. They charged.

Tony had been studying swordplay for several months now, and he could keep up with anyone else on the team (okay, except maybe Natasha, since there was no competition when it came to Natasha and pointy objects). But still, whenever he sparred with Kel and she came anywhere close to taking the brakes off, he could _feel_ the difference between himself and someone who'd been doing this all her life. Part of it was the way she could react far faster than any ordinary human, which was a terribly unfair advantage. But another part — the bigger part, if he was being honest with himself — was pure accumulated skill and experience.

It was exactly the same feeling he got whenever he crossed swords with a Gold-Tip. The Mino was the pro, and Tony was the hobbyist.

But he wasn't alone. They were three against two — would be four once Kel showed up. He just had to not get killed. Evade, redirect, don't move in straight lines, don't match strength for strength, _Kel, any time now_ …

_Fuck_ he lost his sword. Steve took his opponent's attention as he went scrambling after it. Got his hand on the hilt. Turned in time to see the Gold-Tip knock Steve's shield from his hands, kick him to the ground, _oh fuck_ —

Tony pulled a knife and this was _not_ his thing but he wound up and—

Kel dropped from the trees like an angry squirrel and landed on the Gold-Tip's back. The impact drove his swing wide and Steve rolled clear just barely in time. He picked up his shield and Tony grabbed his sword again, and they reformed the line.

"Help Clint!" Kel ordered. Her hand was locked around the Mino's horn and she threw all her weight to the side, sending the two of them to the ground.

"Stay with her," Steve countered, and headed for Barton, who'd been backed almost to their defensive line.

The Mino still had its sword, and so did Kel. She twisted clear before it could grab onto her, and they fenced.

No one was looking Tony's way. He stabbed at the Mino's back, but the strike was deflected by armor. Instantly it kicked back. That wicked bull's hoof caught his arm and Tony knew the bone was broken. The fucking sword went flying again. He pulled the knife again, left-handed.

"Leave it!" Kel snapped at him, like that was going to happen. In that moment of distraction, the Mino sliced open her leg and she staggered backward.

But then in came… oh no. In came George, all angry lizard wings a-flapping. Oh no oh no—

The Mino rounded on the newest threat, and on a scale of ill-considered ideas, this one was going to make the top of the list for the month at least. Tony put his shoulder into it, and drove with all his might into the Mino's midsection. He struck unyielding armor and that hurt like _hell_. The Mino's sword thudded into Tony's back and was deflected by his own armor (he was never complaining about sleeping in the stuff again). Then the Mino seized him by the arm and flung him like a ragdoll. His shoulder separated with an audible pop and a flash of pain, and he tumbled through the air and slammed into a tree.

But he'd managed to slap the Mino on the back as he went by, and he'd left something behind. The little packets of ignition powder were supposed to be used on the tanks, but the team had several to spare and the Mino's armor would do just as well.

It didn't burn fast, but it burned _hot_. Pretty soon the Mino realized that something had gone terribly wrong. He bailed on the fight and tore off the outer layer of leather armor and the plating beneath. Easy pickings, in other words. Kel disarmed him and stabbed him in the guts.

Barton and Steve were holding their own, but they hadn't made much headway. The Mino looked like it could do this all night, while the two humans were bloody and limping.

As soon as Kel was on the scene, everything changed. The Mino recognized the threat, turned its back on the other two, and went on the offensive. But it couldn't keep up with all three of them. Kel kept the sword busy while Steve and Barton went for body strikes. It spun and tried to drive them back, but Steve deflected the sword with his shield and Barton carved open its arm with his spear. Disarmed. With a swing of his staff, Barton broke its knee. Kel flicked its helmet off with her sword, then grabbed it by the face and… did her thing.

Once the howling stopped, Kel went back over to the first body and stripped off its helmet as well. She bent over and touched its head briefly.

Steve dropped his sword with a groan and leaned over, bracing himself on his shield. "Everyone okay? Tony?"

Tony wasn't quite up to standing yet, but he'd managed to sit up. "Not great, but I'll live."

"Avoidable," Kel said, and glared at Steve. "I had that one, three of you could have had the other."

"I wasn't about to leave you without backup."

She rattled off something in her native tongue that did _not_ sound like she was agreeing with his point.

"What did that mean?" Steve asked.

"It means I don't have these problems if you're j'Brenithi. Now I have many things to fix." She jabbed her finger at Steve. "You sit." To Barton: "You help me." Then she settled down next to Tony.

"You sure you're okay to do this?" Tony asked her. "A few hours ago, it was all 'don't touch my skin' with a certain degree of urgency."

"A few hours ago I ran for three days, didn't stop to hunt," Kel replied. "Fine now. Annoyed. Relax."

Somehow this turned into a teachable moment. Kel couldn't just pop his shoulder back in, she had to show Barton how to do it. (Yes, she blocked the pain first, and yes, she asked him first. Still annoying.) Better yet, George stretched to the very end of his tether, which let him come just far enough to put his head in Tony's lap and gaze up at him soulfully.

"You are are terrible horse and this is entirely your fault," Tony informed him. It made no impression.

Bones got mended, and bleeding staunched. (Steve had somehow managed to pick up a sword wound along pretty much every gap in his armor. Always the overachiever.) Once they were all basically whole again, they disassembled their remaining traps and got ready to find a new campsite.

Barton nodded at the first Gold-Tip that Kel had taken out. "That guy's still breathing."

"Yes," she said. "After you leave, we'll have a conversation. Then I'll follow you."

For the second time that day, they put some distance between themselves and a battlefield. Steve marched them for about half an hour before they found a little clearing with enough space to make camp. They'd barely put down their packs and set out a few lanterns when Kel caught up with them.

"Get anything useful?" Barton asked her.

"He said those ones were the only group of Mjentur close to here," she said. "The war leader holds most back for the bridge and the beta site."

"You do know that information obtained through torture—"

"I would sense if he lied, and he knew this," she said. "He believed what he said, but always possible that the war leader didn't share plans. Please continue to be careful."

"Thanks," Steve said, and if there was just the tiniest hint of that attitude he got whenever she showed up and started giving orders, he softened immediately afterward. "For everything. Can you at least stay the night? You've earned a break."

"Not the whole night," she said. "Still have to travel. But I can stay a short time, help with injuries a little more."

Tony didn't even have to milk his still-tender arm. Steve put him on horse-tethering duty while he and Barton redid the perimeter defenses. After Tony had secured the two leads, he sat down next to George, and Kel sat down next to him.

"Can I check the arm again?"

He handed it over, and she gently started working her fingers along the length of the bones. She no longer looked to be on the verge of collapsing from exhaustion, but she was still wan.

"So," Tony said. "How are you holding up?"

Her brow furrowed. "Fine."

"You sure?" Tony asked. "Because, among other things, we seem to be blowing right past the fact that you took out an entire enemy platoon by yourself. That sort of thing can take a toll, even without the impalement." She was still giving him this look of suspicious confusion, and he added, "Look, you're usually the one who checks on me. Can't blame me for picking up the habit."

His arm was a little sore, but nothing serious. Kel set it back down in his lap, and shifted her attention to his shoulder.

"Does it bother you, the things I do?" she asked quietly.

He shrugged with the other shoulder. "There are a lot of lives at stake. We're all doing what we have to. And I'm still — shocking, I realize — more interested in talking about you."

Her hand was very gentle. Completely unlike when it had clamped down around his wrist earlier. The lingering pain seemed to melt away at her touch as she empathically soothed the strained ligaments.

"In my life, I did many things that were worse, for reasons that were worse," Kel said. "Yes, I want to be more than a weapon. But we need weapons right now, so I do what I trained to do and I don't regret it." She glanced his way. "Is it all right?"

"Yeah. _Yes_. Of course. It wasn't a _test_. I just…" He gestured vaguely, feeling his face heat up.

She released his shoulder and smoothed his collar back into place. "I understand," she said. "Kind of you to ask."

They both leaned back against the same tree and stretched out their legs.

"A long time since I worked this hard," Kel said, and shifted the sword on her hip to a marginally less awkward position. "Have to remember how."

"Yeah, I'm a little surprised that Jean would send you off by yourself."

"Jean doesn't _send_ me. I convinced her I need to go."

"Of course. My mistake." He stole a glance at her. "On a different topic, just out of curiosity… that thing you said to Steve? Let's say I went to your planet and said it. Are we talking a slap in the face, a citation for public indecency, what?"

She arched her eyebrows at him. "If you said it? You would be stabbed immediately."

"Stabbed, or impaled?"

Kel made a show of weighing the options. "Only stabbed, I think."

"Good to know."

"To be impaled, you say—" and she produced another line of sizzling syllables, tagged with a snappy hand gesture that showed her palm.

Tony let his jaw drop in a show of shock. "Now _that_ was just uncalled for."

She looked him right in the eye, snapped her palm at him again, and said, " _Okay_."

They both burst out laughing.

There was a certain temptation to split Kel into a human half and an alien half, where he liked the former and warily tolerated the latter. But — even setting aside the obvious biological inaccuracies — that was far too simplistic a model. The whole thing was _her_ : the history, the training, the often brutal instincts, mixed in together with the patience, compassion, and offbeat sense of humor. No piece of it could be disentangled.

…Goddammit, he'd just articulated his issue with Natasha, hadn't he, albeit from the other direction. She and Kel were each the culmination of their histories, together with — inseparable from — their present-day choices. One of those choices had been to conceal his parents' murder from him, and _oh_ , he was still furious. But it hadn't been because she'd been hard-coded to lie to people. Nothing so simplistic. There'd been a reason. ( _My actions have motives other than villainy_. Rule one.) Maybe he wanted to know what it was.

However. That was an issue for another day.

Tony slumped down the tree a little and rested his hand on George's scaly head. Charmingly, Kel was still snickering a little at her deployment of her favorite Human word. As usual, she had gone out of her way to make him feel better. He hoped this time he'd managed to return the favor.

 

* * *

 

Natasha supposed it had been unreasonable to assume that their streak of luck would continue.

They engaged the second enemy platoon. This time, Jean decided to try out some of Tony and Alisha's gadgets that were supposed to overload the tanks' weapons systems, and the results were just as effective as advertised. The resulting fireballs wiped out the majority of the troops. They had only a few survivors to mop up, including the Gold-Tip.

Though Natasha had argued vigorously against this, Jean had once again positioned herself to be the one who took on the Gold-Tip first. This one had a spear rather than a sword, and was giving her a run for her money.

Sam finally neutralized his target and ran to back her up, and Natasha was a step behind him. They launched their attack… but a second before they did, the Gold-Tip cracked his staff hard across Jean's ankle. Jean gave a yelp of pain and went down.

He didn't have long to enjoy his achievement. Sam kept his spear busy long enough for Natasha to circle behind him and slit his throat. Then the two of them flocked to Jean's side.

Her jaw was tight with suppressed pain, and she was holding her foot up off the ground. Sam unlaced her boot and eased it off, and Jean groaned as he probed the ankle joint.

"I'd need an empath or an x-ray to be sure," he said, "but I think this is broken."

"So I suppose I need a splint and some crutches," Jean said, predictably.

"No, what you need is medical evac. You're done."

"Sam—"

"Don't even try it," he told her sternly. "Let Vision pick you up and take you back to camp. Aaron can fix this up properly, then you can catch a ride back to us the next day."

She huffed at him, but couldn't argue.

It was still a dangerous forest. There was no such thing as a safe spot to sit for several hours, but they would have to do their best. For starters, they had to get some distance from the mess of corpses that was the second tank platoon. Jean leaned on Sam's shoulder and hopped her way back to the horses, then reluctantly consented to ride.

About an hour later, they found a little alcove in the rocks with good sightlines and limited approach vectors. Jean was installed with food, water and weapons, and Natasha and Sam set up tripwires around her with as many grenades as they could spare. Once that was done, there was nothing they could do but walk on, taking the horses with them.

(This was the tricky part: they had to convincingly leave her behind.)

The terrain continued to annoy. It was all well and good for them to decide on a route, but an unexpected crevasse could derail their plans with little warning. It was noticeably longer than Natasha had hoped before she and Sam managed to circle back around to a likely vantage point.

They lay among the rocks above Jean's position, a bit to the north. Natasha could just see the alcove below her. A few of the supplies were right where she'd left them. There were no signs of a struggle, and none of the explosives had gone off. They'd arrived in time.

A small enemy squadron had been shadowing them for the past two days. Natasha knew it because she knew when there were eyes on her, because she'd caught glimpses of motion in the distance where motion shouldn't have been. They were being shadowed, but their shadows were maintaining a very cautious distance. It would have been risky — just a shade too risky — to go on the hunt, and possibly get into a duel of trackers and traps. No, they had to lure the enemy in. Jean was gambling that a team member, injured and alone, would prove too tempting a prize.

(Natasha had some acting notes. The yelp had been overblown. On the other hand, Sam had unquestionably been working from a place of emotional truth.)

Perhaps it wasn't surprising that the enemy hadn't moved in yet, given how conservatively they'd behaved so far. But something wasn't sitting right. Some instinct was unsettled. She couldn't pin it down, but she couldn't ignore it.

"Sam," she whispered, "does anything look off to you?"

"Like what?"

"I don't know. Anything."

He pulled a pair of binoculars and slowly scanned the terrain.

"Two o'clock," he said after a while, and handed her the binoculars. "About ten yards outside our perimeter. Does that look like a blind to you?"

She looked. Yes — there it was: a mottled piece of forest floor that didn't quite fit in with its surroundings. It was some kind of camouflage netting.

So both teams were lying in wait for each other. Why? Did the Gold-Tips suspect a trap? Could the blind itself be bait for the humans, meant to distract them while someone crept around behind and—

A shadow crossed overhead and turned the entire scenario on its side.

Vision was inbound.

This was a trap for him.

No time to wonder how he was expected to walk into it because he'd already done it. He dropped to the ground in front of Jean, right in the line of fire.

Natasha sprang up and shouted, "Vision, take off!"

Too late. The enemy had already fired the local equivalent of an RPG: a metal tube that propelled a rust bomb. Vision lifted off immediately, but he couldn't phase through the attack. From her position, there was no way to tell how far and how fast the cloud spread.

Natasha and Sam half-ran, half-slid down the rocks. From above, Vision fired his beam in a broad arc, cutting off the Gold-Tips' escape.

The enemy squadron had to know that they were dead. They reversed course and zeroed in on Jean, dodging every trap and tripwire in the way. But they weren't going to get there first. Not this time.

Vision couldn't help them directly — not with rust contaminating the whole area. He fired at the leading Gold-Tip and knocked him back, but the enemy armor held up. It was down to the three of them on the ground.

The Gold-Tips might have figured out the tripwires on the perimeter, but what they didn't know was that some of Jean's supplies were actually shaped charges. Jean rose to meet the enemy — both ankles intact — and as soon as Sam and Natasha had hit the ground behind her, she lunged forward and yanked on the hidden trigger wire. A blast of shrapnel took down one of the Gold-Tips instantly and sent the other two reeling back. Vision abandoned his beam for a more low-tech solution, and nailed a second one in the head with a rock. Natasha's team quickly cut down the third.

But the enemy squadron was no longer the most pressing issue. Not by a long shot.

They all scrambled their way up the rocks and fell back to a distance that was hopefully outside the range of the rust bomb. Vision descended to meet them.

"Are you…" Jean trailed off, and her jaw went slack. "Oh my God."

Vision looked down, and his head tilted curiously.

Natasha knew that Vision could change his appearance at will back home, but here in the wrong universe, his phasing and transformation powers didn't work. He had arrived wearing his normal grey-green combat uniform. But now, starting from the left foot and creeping upward, he was turning a lifeless, chalky white.

"It isn't painful," he said. "In fact, the interplay between the substance and my body is quite interesting." The color change seemed to stabilize just below his knee. "You have my gratitude, Ms. Romanoff. Another second of exposure would have likely been fatal. As it stands, I suspect this will be reparable once we return to Earth. However…"

He was still floating a few inches above the ground. He tapped his shin with his other heel, and the contaminated piece disintegrated.

Natasha took a look at Jean's face and knew exactly what she was thinking.

_One down_.

 


	49. Chapter 49

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My beta reader would like to make it known that the end of this chapter gave her a calf cramp and caused her to fall out of bed. So... stretch before reading, I guess?

Tony was stunned into silence. Vision's leg below the knee was just… gone. Destroyed. Nothing but an irregular metallic surface remained.

He didn't… he'd known, in theory, that the Minos' rust bombs could degrade vibranium. He and Alisha had tested a pinch of it back in camp. But it was a long road from theory to practice, and his brain was flat rejecting the evidence of his eyes.

Steve found his voice first. "I'm so sorry. Are you in any pain?"

"Not at all," Vision replied, the picture of equanimity. "The damaged material fell away. Everything that remains is sound."

Steve gave a tight nod. "Okay. That's good. Tony, do you think you could manufacture something—"

"Yeah," Tony said. "Absolutely. It'll be crude, but I could forge something that— or Li could do it. At this point she's done as much blacksmithing as I have. No reason to wait for me. And — look, these last couple years, Helen's rebuilt the cradle and made some major upgrades. I'm certain she can repair this." He wasn't sure why he was explaining this to Vision, who knew far more about his own composition than Tony did, but he had to say _something_. "Normally I'd worry about where to get the vibranium, but it just so happens I spent ten months mining the damned stuff. We'll bring some back with us, get this fixed up. No question. It'll be fine."

"I reached the same conclusion," Vision said. "The more pressing concern is the impact on our previously established plans. Jean has asked me to convey that anyone incurring a serious injury can no longer be left behind for evacuation. My only contact with your team will be at our daily rendezvous. Although I don't believe that the Mjentur ambush tactic would work a second time, she is quite insistent on this point."

"Yeah, I agree," said Steve. "There's no way we risk them taking a second shot at you. All right — from now on, we all stay together. Any casualties will travel by horse until they can be picked up."

"Or, you know, we could not get seriously injured," Barton said.

"Or that." He turned back to Vision. "Any other news?"

"Yes — instead of my standard long-range reconnaissance flights, Jean has requested that I fly over each enemy group, pause visibly, and… her turn of phrase was 'blast the shit out of them'."

"Given their armoring, you're probably not going to do too much damage," Steve said.

"She is aware of that, of course. The objective is not so much material as it is attitudinal."

"Just be careful. Don't give any of them a chance to shoot back."

"Of course." Vision rose into the air, passed through the forest canopy, and vanished.

Barton pretty much summed it up when he said, "Well, fuck."

Steve was in full lockdown mode. "Obviously we'll do everything we can for him when we get back to Earth, and we'll make sure it can't happen again. In the meantime, we still have a mission to accomplish."

"Interesting countermove from Jean," Barton said. "Not what I would have guessed from her."

Tony said, "She doesn't like to be pushed."

"No, she doesn't."

 

* * *

 

Their mission plan left them the option of turning back after the second engagement, if the circumstances warranted. But Sam had always known that Jean would never leave the job undone.

They'd been surveilling their third tank platoon for a night and a day. This one had the usual Gold-Tip and fifty or so Mjentur, plus some bonus features: a column of Geckos and two of those damned fireball squids. Sam would have liked nothing more than to take them out by exploding a tank or two, but apparently news of the humans' tactics had been spreading: each tank had two guards posted on top of it.

(And yeah, it was pretty damned weird that the platoons had been passing on information, given that Sam was pretty sure there hadn't been any survivors. His best guess — or worst nightmare — was that there were eyeball plants slinking around somewhere, spying and somehow reporting back.)

A daytime strike wasn't looking good. The enemy was way too alert, and there wasn't enough cover. They would never get close.

The alternative, then, was a stealth attack overnight. But that wasn't going to be easy either. The enemy made a point of camping out in the open, not stopping their evening hike until they'd found a break in the forest. That ruled out infiltration from above. They surrounded their campsite with a wide, thick mat of poisonous vines and eyeball stalks. Multiple layers of sentries patrolled the perimeter. And just in case Sam's team tried to lob in a few grenades, the soldiers not on sentry duty bedded down inside the tanks. The crowding couldn't have been fun, but it was secure.

The three of them tossed it back and forth all afternoon, but the conclusion was inescapable: no way were they sneaking in.

So Jean took her plan to the other extreme entirely.

First, the setup. They scouted ahead of the advancing platoon, and found a wide gap in the forest where the ground was broken by a stretch of low, flat rocks. It was just the sort of place where the enemy was likely to make camp. Behind it to the north, the forest climbed a steep hill for about fifty yards before the ground leveled off again. That meant vantage points and cover.

They'd secured the horses a good half-mile to the east, hopefully safe and out of sight. The sun was setting as they hauled all of their weapons in a wide loop around the rocks to the top of the hill. By the time they'd gotten into position, Sam guessed that the Mjentur advance scouts were about twenty minutes away.

"If you leave one track," Jean said to Natasha, "this will all have been for nothing."

Nat didn't dignify that with a reply. She cinched up her pack and set off.

The team had brought all kinds of weapons with them, including one that Sam really didn't like thinking about: a little metal box with some pieces of that carnivorous moss. Someone had to open the box each day and drop in a few scraps of meat to keep the stuff alive. It was revolting.

The moss preferred meat, but it would take what it could get. Sam had already seen it eat through wood once, way back at the garrison attack when it had destroyed the dock and his boots. Naturally, Jean had been curious about whether it could be used as a weapon against the tanks.

Tony and Alisha had done tests — they'd done tests on so many things, Sam wasn't sure how they'd found the time to sleep — and they'd found that the moss took several hours to get desperate enough to take a bite out of the ironwood exterior. That was more than long enough for someone to notice and scrape it off. The interior of the tank, however, wasn't ironwood but something a lot more pliable. Better yet, the central stalk and that giant intestine thing were both sufficiently meat-like that the moss ate them up.

Another fun fact: the moss chewed through wood a lot faster if there was something juicier — like, say, a dozen sleeping soldiers — on the other side of it.

Yeah.

And the final component of this gruesome plan was an invention of Alisha's. She'd come up with fingernail-sized capsules that would keep a fragment of moss contained for an hour or so. The tanks had extendable mouths that took bites out of the undergrowth as they marched along. Natasha's job was to seed the ground ahead of them with little toy surprises.

In the meantime, Sam and Jean were preparing for their part of the op. Tony had made each of them an incredible full-body suit of armor that would have been right at home in a jousting contest. But the suits didn't work for hiking distances, and the two horses couldn't have possibly hauled them along on top of all the other weapons and supplies.

So they couldn't protect themselves completely, but at least they'd packed their moss-stomping boots. The steel armor stretched from the soles of Sam's feet all the way up to his knees. He was _not_ going to be digging carnivorous moss out of his flesh, or sweating it out through another round of eyeball vine poisoning. No thank you.

The big steel boots and shin guards were the opposite of stealthy. He and Jean lay low while the enemy scouts walked through the clearing and scoured the nearby hill. Then, with their armor wrapped in rags so that it wouldn't clank, they split up and made their way to their final positions.

The enemy platoon reached the rocky stretch and began to set up their camp, exactly like they were supposed to. Sam watched through binoculars from his position to the south as the tanks settled down in a tight square formation. Some of the soldiers tossed out large bundles that unfurled themselves into the perimeter mat with shocking speed. Here and there, eyeballs poked up from the tangle.

Natasha stepped out of the shadows and crouched down to join him as these preparations were wrapping up.

"How's it looking?" she asked.

"Same configuration as last night," Sam replied. "Squids to the east and west. There's no one shot that takes out both of them. You sure we can kill the other one?"

"Someone just needs to get close enough to plant a grenade in its tentacles."

"Oh, that's all, huh?"

Natasha also had a shield. It was more angular than Steve's, and had been treated with the energy-dissipating spiral pattern. She shifted it a little higher on her arm and said, "It'll be fun. Like dodgeball."

Sam rolled his eyes at her idea of fun, and returned to his surveillance. "See you in there. Good luck."

He couldn't tell if the squids actually… slept, or what, but whatever they did, they did it sort of slumped over in a heap, one on either end of the camp. The sentries wore armor and full face masks that, Sam guessed, would protect them from airborne toxins. The rest of the soldiers slept inside the tanks. But you couldn't armor a squid.

Jean had wanted a cannon of her own ever since that first accidental demonstration, and Tony and Alisha had managed to oblige her. They'd extracted the components from the framework of the tank and scaled them down for portability. The result didn't pack quite the same punch as the original, but Sam was pretty sure it would be good enough to explode a squid or two.

There was no way to predict exactly how long it would take the moss to chew through the inside of the tank and start on the inhabitants. But it was a safe bet that there was going to be uproar once it started. The timing was in Jean's hands. She too had a set of binoculars, and would be waiting from her vantage point for the first signs of alarm.

At least an hour passed. The moss was taking its sweet time. If it had even been swallowed at all. That was another thing they couldn't predict: how many of the tanks had picked up the capsules, and whether the moss would grow at the same rate in each one.

The wait dragged on for long enough that Sam began to wonder if their entire plan was a bust.

When the howling began, it was about as awful as anything he'd ever heard. Dozens of Minos woke up to the realization that they were being eaten alive. Sam started his run the moment he heard the first screams, and a second later came a deafening thunder crack as Jean touched off her cannon. A fireball blasted its way down the slope and reduced one of the squids to a smoking pile of glop.

The cannon had a recharge delay. For about thirty seconds, Sam was on his own. The outer line of sentries didn't know where to run first and Sam blew right past them to the mat of vines. Every stomp of his boots set off a terrible screech, but the poison spines were no match for his armor. A bunch of eyeball stalks came slithering in to gang up on him, and Sam enjoyed the hell out of chopping them down with his spear.

More god-awful screeching as Natasha made her own run, then all other noises dropped out for a moment in the wake of a second ear-splitting crack from the cannon. A pack of Geckos went flying.

They made it across the vines into the enemy campsite. Natasha's job — hold off the survivors. Sam's — rig a tank to blow.

(And Lord, he'd had to fight Jean for it. Almost literally. But enough was enough. She'd taken the most dangerous assignments for herself over and over and he _got_ it — she still didn't feel like she had the right to order other people to take more risks than she was taking. But there came a point where she had to trust the people on her team.)

_Focus_. Two of the four tanks showed no signs of life. One soldier inside the third had lasted long enough to throw open the hatch, but the moss had gotten him moments later. The fourth, though, hadn't been infiltrated, and its occupants had joined forces with the remaining sentries.

The Gold-Tip, as always, had survived. The damned things were like cockroaches.

Sam headed for the open tank, squishing patches of moss as he went. He abandoned his spear and pulled climbing spikes from his belt — vibranium, to penetrate the ironwood. His armored boots had already been outfitted likewise. Natasha protected his back while he scaled the tank and fit the ring of the tank-killer over the knob that was the tip of a cannon.

Another blast from Jean and half a dozen guards went tumbling. Their specially treated armor seemed to protect them from the worst of it, but the impact of the blast took them off their feet, and as far as Natasha was concerned, that was just as good. She flitted through them, slitting throats.

Setting off the cannon wasn't a quick process, especially if the tank was dead. The weapons themselves weren't fried, but the control system was. Sam was actually — he could hardly believe it himself — going to have to open up that panel and poke some damned vines. Tony'd come up with a jumper cable connected to a tiny power source on a time delay. If Sam clamped it around the correct vine, it would send a jolt through a collection of power-transfer filaments and set off the cannon blast that would in turn backfire and detonate the tank. Hopefully not before Sam and his team had taken cover.

He fit a filter mask over his face before climbing down and stepping through the hatch. The interior, as expected, was grim.

Only the outer shell of the tank was still intact. Most of the floor had collapsed. Sam had to use the spikes to keep himself attached to the wall, balancing on the tiny ledge that remained. His armor protected his legs, but if he fell, he was dead.

He cracked the end cap on the little organic flashlight and stuck it in his teeth, then jimmied open the panel. Same bunch of vines that he and Tony had spent hours studying. He picked through them until he found the one that led up into the little purple nodule thing that… well, he didn't have a damned clue what it did, but it was the one he needed.

The power burst was not on a long delay. Sam set it and bellowed for Nat to run. He leapt down from the tank — slick moss beneath his feet nearly threw him off-balance — grabbed his spear and followed his own advice.

Scalding hot air and unbearable sound. Sam hit the deck behind the next tank over — hoping to hell that none of the moss had bothered heading that way — just before the shrapnel went flying. The tank jerked and shuddered and nearly bounced off its legs as it was pelted with ironwood fragments.

It wasn't a clean sweep. A few of the Minos had made it to cover, too. So had the Gold-Tip. So had the goddamned second squid.

Most of the eyeball vines had been fried. There was a half-hearted shriek from the few left over as Jean ran across them, cannon abandoned, to join in the mop-up.

The squid and the Gold-Tip had Nat surrounded. She was holding her own, but she couldn't get close enough for a kill shot on the squid with the Gold-Tip at her back.

Jean cut down two Minos in quick succession. She and Sam were on opposite sides of the squid.

The Gold-Tip kicked hard and Natasha lost her shield. The squid took a shot and she just barely rolled clear, and then the Gold-Tip was on her again.

Sam pulled a grenade from his belt, and Jean did the same. They caught each other's eye. One of them had to make it.

His legs were protected. His torso wasn't. The plates inside his body armor had also been treated with the spirals, but they left gaps for mobility. A direct hit would put a hole in him.

He charged. So did Jean. The squid spun from one to the next, and each time they had to dodge a white-hot blast, it got a little harder because they got a little closer. They both closed in but Sam was going to get there a half-step sooner and that meant—

The fireball came in and he knew, he _knew_ he wasn't getting clear in time, not from that close. He twisted sideways hard enough his ribs were screaming, then the fireball struck and _everything_ was screaming.

The next time Sam checked in with reality, he was on the ground and holy _shit_ his back was on fire. Also, he was underneath a whole lot of tentacle pieces and that was disgusting.

A string of blistering Russian sounded from somewhere above him. He tried to look— _nope_ , moving was _not_ happening. Lying still and not screaming was the only thing that was happening. Burns were so _fucking_ awful, Jesus _Christ_. ( _Breathe_.) At least he still had the mask on. Couldn't smell anything.

Boots crossed his line of sight, and Jean knelt next to him. "We're secure," she said, and lifted her chin to check on his back. Her expression was very carefully not doing anything. "Natasha picked up a bit of moss, but we dealt with it." She reached into her trouser pocket for the emergency first aid kit. "Now, you are going to absolutely hate me for this, but we can't stay here."

"I know," he gritted. "Do what you gotta do."

Natasha crouched next to Jean, pressing a bandage to her bloody arm. "Hey, Sam. Don't worry about a thing. I happen to know a top-notch burn unit."

"Who's worried? I'm not the one who got bit by the damned moss."

Jean jabbed him with morphine (that was nice), then lifted him onto her shoulders (oh that goddamned was _not_ ). Not a lot of women he would have trusted to carry a guy his size all the way back to the horses. But Jean would get it done.

(He might have said something about changing her nickname from 'Boss-Lady' to 'Muscles'. Blame the morphine.)

The narcotics started kicking in harder and stuff got… driftier. Sam watched the trees go by, kind of sideways and upside-downish, and figured that things weren't all that bad. They'd gone three for three. They were a little banged up, but they'd done the job.

The world went fuzzy for a long while, and that was probably for the best. Sam had some vague memories of catching the Vision express back to camp, then snatches of the infirmary and Aaron standing over him. Then a whole lot of nothing.

The trip back to reality was leisurely. The next time he opened his eyes, he was in a dark room, lying on his side on something comfortable, and mostly numb. Detached in a way that he knew meant that some excellent drugs were involved. Basically lucid.

"Guess that worked out okay," he said aloud. No particular reason. (Huh. Maybe only _mostly_ lucid.)

A noise began in response. Something soft and… and cloth-like. Fabric-y. The dark surface he was looking at started changing shape.

Sam watched this in fascination, waiting for meaning to arrive. Then the dark thing — a curtain — slid aside, and he was looking at Tony in the adjacent cot.

"I specifically requested a private suite," Tony said.

"You too, huh?"

Tony waved a hand dismissively. "I just got sick of hiking. Decided to take a shortcut. What was your thing?"

"Squid. Fireball. You?"

"Slightly stabbed. It was barely anything, but Steve made a fuss."

"Huh." Sam grinned. "So how did the Grumpy Old White Dude squad get on?"

"Wha— We're _not_ …"

Sam watched him try and fail to find a flaw.

" _Whatever_ ," he finally growled. "Fine. In spite of our advanced years, poor disposition, and lamentable homogeneity, we got our three. You?"

"Same," Sam said. "The last one didn't go down easy."

"Same."

Another sound came from behind his head. Sam eventually recognized it as a door opening and closing. The new arrival turned out to be the Spider-kid.

He stepped in between the cots and focused on Tony. "Mr. Stark, you're supposed to be sleeping."

"Can't put anything past those ears of yours," Tony said. "Actually — are spiders known for their hearing? Where does a spider keep its ears, anyway?"

Peter gave the sigh of someone whose future contained a lot of requests for spider trivia. "Spiders can hear by sensing vibrations," he said, "and I can hear _you_ because you're not actually quiet. And look, you've pulled out your IV again. Now I have to fix it. Exactly like I did before, so _yes_ , I—"

"You sure you know what you're doing?"

The kid groaned, and slid the curtain shut.

The view in front of Sam went back to being dark and formless. Some rustling happened.

" _Ow_."

"I didn't even touch you yet!"

"I have a very accurate imagination."

"No, you don't, because Aaron did it on me to show me how, so I _know_ it doesn't even feel like anything. Hold still."

"You sure you know what you're doing?"

"Oh my _God_."

Another pause

"There. Now go back to sleep."

"You're not the boss of me."

The kid opened the curtain and shut it again, this time leaving himself on Sam's side of the room. "Hey, Falcon," he said.

"Hey, kid. You're building quite the skillset."

"Well, people keep getting hurt even when I tell them to be careful, and this is one of the only things I'm allowed to do, so." Peter reached for something above Sam's head, which was the first time Sam noticed that he also had one of those pod IVs hooked up to his arm. "How's your pain level, not too bad?"

"Nah, I'm drugged to the gills. Everything's great."

"Okay, good. I'm supposed to change the dressing on your back now. And don't worry, Aaron showed me exactly what to do, so you don't have to ask—"

"You sure you know what you're doing?"

From out of sight, Tony chortled.

The light in the room increased, which was a really impressive trick until Sam remembered that they had lanterns. He stared at a slightly better lit nothing while some stuff went on behind him, vaguely.

Eventually, the light switched off and Peter came back, scrubbing his hands clean with some antiseptic slime. "Everything looks good," he said. "Or… not worse, anyway. Aaron will check on it in the morning and probably do some more work on the burns."

"Nice job, kid."

"Leave the curtain open," Tony called as Peter reached the door.

"No. You're gonna be asleep in a minute. Stop making trouble."

Then he was gone.

"Hey, Tony?"

"Shhh. You're gonna get us in trouble with Spider-Nurse."

"Yeah." He waited a bit. "Hey, Tony?"

"Yeah?"

"We won this round, too."

Sam surfaced again the next morning. A bit more of his brain switched on this time — enough to recognize his surroundings as the infirmary waiting room. Sun was streaming in through the skylight. He was still lying on his side on a cot, and the curtain separating him from Tony was closed.

His back was a little sore. Given that he probably still had second-degree burns, 'a little sore' was absolutely fine by him.

When Aaron made his rounds, he confirmed what Sam had guessed: that the burns would have been in skin graft territory if they'd been on Earth, and were going to require a couple days of empathic treatment and bed rest here. Aaron did a session of repair work, then bandaged Sam up again and injected another dose of painkillers into his IV. Sam's eyelids immediately started getting heavy.

Aaron made a stop on Tony's side of the room, then slid the curtain partway open and left. The two roommates looked each other up and down. Tony looked about as tired as Sam felt, but whatever had happened — and Sam figured that it had been a little worse than a _slight_ stabbing — there seemed to be no permanent damage done.

Tony reached his own conclusions about Sam, and they each gave a quick nod.

"Six teams down out of ten," Sam said. "Not a bad bit of work."

"There were more than ten teams," Tony replied, "and more than six down. Kel dropped in on us one night and filled us in on what she'd been up to. The Minos sent a group south by sea. She tracked them down and took them out. When she left, she was planning to rack up at least one more. Not sure when she's due back."

It was the sort of thing that would sound ridiculous to anyone who hadn't seen Kel in action. "Do you ever think about how screwed we would be if she wasn't on our side?" Sam asked.

"Sometimes, yeah." Tony looked up at the ceiling. "We never saw Humphrey. You?"

"No. Guess he's in no hurry to stick his neck out." Exactly the opposite of Jean, come to think of it.

"How much time have we got before the next attack, do you figure?"

"Four, maybe five days," Sam said. "The last couple teams are still getting into position. Then they're going to form a united front to make their push for the bridge."

Tony glanced at him quickly, then went back to staring at the ceiling. "And, uh… how's our side doing, in your professional opinion?"

This, unsurprisingly, was a topic Sam had thought about a lot. "Considering the odds? Pretty damned miraculous. At least we managed to learn a few things from all the months this planet spent kicking our asses. By the way, those moss capsules Alisha whipped up? They were perfect. Gruesome, but perfect."

"She's got talent," said Tony. "But do me a favor, okay? If you say something to her, don't mention the body count. Keep it just, you know — it worked, it did what you needed… don't dwell on the details."

"Yeah, no problem."

"Anyway. You were saying."

"This next push is going to be the worst," Sam said. "But if we can get through it, then we'll be the last ones standing. Why — you worried?"

Tony snorted. "Only when I'm conscious."

"I hear you. But Jean's got a pretty good handle on this bridge plan of hers. I think she can pull it off."

Tony pushed his blanket back and began the slow process of sitting up. He had a shirt on, so Sam couldn't see how much damage he was still carrying. But the trip from horizontal to vertical took a solid minute.

"Are you supposed to be doing that?" Sam asked.

"Probably not," Tony groaned, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. "I don't know how Kel shakes this stuff off." He pointed at his stomach. "When she dropped by, she had matching holes right here, front and back. I don't even know what it was — a sword or what — but she was run clean through. I got vaguely poked, and today I'm too exhausted to stand. She got impaled, and she followed it by running an ultramarathon. A less secure man might feel a bit inadequate right now."

Sam chuckled. "Different species, different standards."

"Yeah." Tony slowly straightened up and took a couple breaths. "By the way, how are you doing with…" He gestured vaguely in Sam's direction.

"Can't feel a thing," Sam said, which was getting more true by the minute. "But I know better than to push it."

"Do you want me to shut up and let you sleep?"

"No, I think I got a bit more debriefing in me." This process was important — talking through their progress, their successes and failures, their different perspectives and observations. Sam was good with doing his part for team-building for as long as he could keep his eyes open.

Which was going to be about fifteen minutes, twenty tops. But still.

"How did, um…" Tony fiddled with the edge of the blanket. "How did Jean do? With the small team and guerrilla tactics and all that?"

That was an easy one. "There's two ways a brand-new CO can go," said Sam. "There's the type that thinks their officer's bars make 'em too good to get their hands dirty, and there's the type that turns leading by example into taking all the risks themselves, even when it's bad tactics."

"I think I can guess which category she's in."

"Yeah. She still needs to get the hang of sending other people into danger. But she's smart, focused, tough. Ruthless when she has to be. She's getting it done."

"Okay," Tony said. "Then I guess we're doing all right."

 

* * *

 

Aaron turned on a dime from keeping Tony in bed to kicking him out.

"You're fine," he said after he checked on Tony's former stab wound the next morning. "Your blood volume has recovered, and the muscles are healed. Now you need to build your strength back up. Get out of here and go for a walk."

Tony went for coffee first, then meandered over to the complex that had once been ore processing and was now weapons manufacture. Alisha had dropped by the day before and given him an update on their many projects. He'd barely been gone two weeks, but he had a lot to catch up on.

She emerged from one of the sheds, and changed course as soon as she saw him.

"Hey, Tony. Are you sure you're okay to be out of bed?"

He waved a hand. "Please. It was the most trivial of stabbings. I'm fine. How's work? Show me everything."

They did a walk-through. Alisha nicely pretended not to notice how slowly Tony was moving.

"And lastly, I figured out a way to squeeze a _bit_ of aluminum out of the local feldspar," she said as they came to the end of their loop through the building. "The yield is pathetic, but…"

She handed him a page of measurements and he skimmed the figures. "No, it looks great, considering what you've got to work with."

"So you've got a bit more thermite coming, if you need it." She paused for a second, and rubbed the back of her neck. "And then, of course, there's…"

"The other thing. Yeah."

Although the combat parts and the getting-stabbed parts had required Tony's full attention, the rest of the mission had left him with time to think. He and Alisha had been trading notes back and forth via Vision about… the other thing. They were making progress. He just wasn't sure if it was enough — or, more accurately, he wasn't sure if anything they could do would be enough.

"You weren't really in a position to give clear instructions yesterday," she said, "but I tweaked the setup a little more based on where I'm pretty sure you were going. The tissue samples seemed to come through it okay. That stuff — the serum that drives his cells to regenerate themselves? It's _incredible_. I can't even begin to guess how it works. But you were right — if we feed it a bit of a jolt first, it can break down the invading filaments without cannibalizing the tissue in the process. Mind you, there's still a serious problem with controlling the intensity of the pulses. The equipment we've got just isn't that precise."

"Yeah, I'm still working on that," Tony said. "How about infiltration levels?"

"Nothing I can detect. It's been that way for about twenty hours now. But… I don't know, that doesn't seem like quite enough to…"

He shook his head quickly. "No, I'll give it at least another day before declaring victory. And, obviously, tissue samples are one thing…"

"Yeah."

"But if this holds up, it'll be something I can take to him. Thanks." Tony realized how distracted he'd sounded, and gave it another try. "Thank you," he told her. "Seriously. I couldn't have gotten this far without you."

Alisha turned her face away, like she didn't want him to catch her smiling. "You know, being here has given me a whole new appreciation for my old job, where there _aren't_ life and death consequences every day. God, I can't wait to get back to routine benchwork."

Tony held up a warning finger. "Ah — _new_ job, remember? SI is still poaching you. And we're not going to waste you on anything that has the word 'routine' attached."

She rolled her eyes at him like she always did. That was better.

In spite of the promising results, Tony didn't take it to Steve when he arrived the next day, along with Barton, George and Non-George. For one thing, Steve had more than enough on his plate, what with having his own accumulated injuries attended to and getting some well-deserved rest. Also, as soon as Steve saw Tony, he started right up again with his clucking and fussing over Tony's little mishap, and that was as much awkwardness as Tony could handle. (Okay, it had been a little more than _slightly_ stabbed. Fucking Gold-Tips.) He and Steve were working together okay these days, but the relationship was still a work in progress.

He disentangled himself from Steve, and traded nods with Barton. Then George came clomping up and tried to stick his snout up Tony's sleeve, and somehow Tony ended up on horse duty while his teammates went to get cleaned up.

Once the two of them had been cleared by Aaron and Tony could use the infirmary again, he carefully sidestepped Steve and spent the rest of the afternoon bent over a microscope. It was like recreating microcircuitry with a screwdriver and a glue gun: the tools were completely wrong and gave only the most indirect hints at the principles.

Even so — since after all there had been two geniuses working the problem for weeks — the results looked very promising. Another full day had passed with no detectable infiltration. The slice of Steve's muscle tissue lived happily in its suspension, healthy and enhanced again.

Tony just had to figure out how the _hell_ to scale up the process to work on an entire body.

The team reunion was completed the next day when Jean and Natasha returned. Jean looked exactly the way a person who hadn't bathed in two weeks could be expected to look. Tony walked right up and put his arms around her, and she squeezed him back.

"Did your team get in yesterday?" she asked.

"Steve and Barton did," Tony replied. "I got a lift a couple days earlier. There was a mild stabbing incident. Sorted out now. No big deal."

She moved him to arm's length and studied him critically.

"Hey, I look a hell of a lot better than you do," he added. "Go let the medics do their thing, clean up, sleep for a couple days. You've earned it."

"A couple hours, perhaps. None of us have a couple days." She looked around, and gave a slight frown. "I'm surprised Kel isn't here. Have you seen her?"

"I don't think she's gotten back yet."

Jean scowled. "She promised me today at the latest. I imagine she'll show up at one minute to midnight and claim that it still counts. All right — if nothing else, I could use a shower. We'll catch up later this afternoon."

Tony left her in Aaron's capable hands.

Lunchtime tended to drift late. Team One was off on a mission, so once again the camp was without a support staff. It fell to whomever happened to be in the area to brew the coffee and mix up some rations.

Tony got to the kitchen and discovered that lunch had already been perpetrated. He dealt himself a few miserable spoonfuls and went outside to grab a table. A few more people would probably be along soon, but for the moment, the only one in the dining area was Natasha.

Well. This would have to happen sooner or later. Maybe he was ready to test the waters.

Tony wandered over. "Hey."

"Hi, Tony," she said.

"Mind if I…"

Of course Natasha would never do anything as overt as exhibit surprise at his request. She gestured to the bench across from her, and he sat.

He found himself saying, "Sam's doing pretty well, all things considered. Supposed to go mobile later today, last I heard. He'll be back to normal in no time." Even though Natasha had just been in the infirmary that morning and had undoubtedly spoken to Sam herself.

Rather than pointing any of that out, she simply said, "Good to hear."

Tony looked down and poked at his bowl of mush a little. "So I've been — I don't know if you've noticed — maybe a little short with you recently."

Natasha delicately arched both eyebrows. "You don't know if I've noticed?"

"Okay, you probably noticed. And I'm not suggesting that this is the right moment for— we've still got a quarter of an army bearing down on us, probably our focus should be on them, not the interpersonal bullshit, but I just… um." It still hurt to say it. Every single time. "My parents. Murdered. Hydra by way of the Winter Soldier. Rumor has it, you and Steve both found out during the DC business. Is that…"

He looked up at her — he made himself look up — and she nodded.

Still _fucking_ hurt. "Okay," he said tightly. "And the thing is, I understand why Steve didn't tell me. Barnes is his own personal slice of the olden days, and he couldn't endanger that. Making him come out and say it won't help. It's there, it happened, we're moving past it. But you… I need to know why. I'm going to— there will come a point when I ask you why. And maybe you won't answer, I can't control that part, but that's… where it is."

She gave him another nod, and they both addressed themselves to their food for a while.

"What did Steve tell you about how it happened?" Natasha asked.

"Nothing. Just that he knew."

"We'd discovered an old SHIELD bunker underneath Camp Lehigh. Arnim Zola had somehow uploaded a simulation of his consciousness into a bank of computers. He was bragging to us about how Hydra had hidden itself inside SHIELD and manipulated history, and one of the newspaper articles he flashed was about your father's death. He implied that the Winter Soldier had been responsible. But that's all it was — insinuation. Nothing specific, nothing verifiable."

"You still should have told me. If there was even the _slightest_ chance that it was true, you damned well should have told me."

"I tried to find some evidence," she said. "After I dumped SHIELD's database online, I spent months sifting through it. I tried every contact I had left. I tracked down anyone who'd ever whispered about the Winter Soldier. There was _nothing_ , Tony. I promise you. I never told you because I believed it was a lie."

"Why?" he shot back. "What purpose could a lie like that have possibly served?"

"If it ever got back to you, it was perfectly constructed to drive you into an obsessive breakdown."

"You mean, like something _you_ would have come up with?"

" _Yes,_ " she snapped. "If I wanted your attention to be fixed on chasing ghosts and nothing else, that's _exactly_ what I would have said. I couldn't do that to you."

Tony waggled his spoon at her. "See, I'm hearing two reasons here — either you didn't tell me because you thought it was false, or you didn't tell me because you didn't think I could handle it. You can't have both. Which one was it?"

Her jaw tensed. "I thought the damage that the lie would cause outweighed the slim chance that it was true."

And there it was. "I need to think it over," Tony said.

"Okay."

"Okay."

He stood up. Made it to the edge of the town square. Wandered in a pointless little circle. Retraced his steps and sat back down.

"Kel eats people."

Natasha paused mid-bite and tilted her head. "Interesting segue."

"No, I'm just saying…" But there turned out to be no way to paraphrase it. "She eats people," Tony said again. "That's what she does. And I'm basically okay with it. So, from your point of view, it might seem a little… out of balance that I'm past that, but not totally sold on you."

It wasn't that much of a puzzle, and Natasha immediately stated the obvious. "Kel never took a bite out of you."

"True. She trounced you pretty good the first day you got to camp. Was that hard to get past?"

"She was maintaining her cover. I would have done exactly the same thing."

"Hm."

Continuing in her survey of the self-evident, Natasha added, "That was straightforward for me because it wasn't personal."

"Yeah," said Tony. "And this was."

"I made the wrong call," she said quietly. "For whatever it's worth, I'm sorry."

Yes. Her call. Her decision. To hide this from him, even though she must have recognized the possibility that it was true.

(And yet it _would_ be in her nature, wouldn't it, to distrust free information. To expect the enemy to lie. To be conscious of the damage that a half-truth could do. Not an excuse, but… relevant context.)

Tony stood up again. Lunch could happen somewhere else. "I still need to think about it," he said.

"Okay."

He started to walk away again, and almost immediately found himself back at the table again. "I meant to ask, how did… armor, weaponry, how'd it all work in the field? Any requests, complaints, anything like that?"

This time Natasha did allow him to see her surprise at the question. "No, everything performed very well," she said. "You and Alisha did a good job."

"Good," he said. "We've still got some rough patches ahead of us. If you think of anything that would be useful to have on hand…"

"Thanks, Tony."

This time he managed to walk in a straight line long enough to exit the area. His course led him to the little wooden shelter where the livestock slept. George, who had no concept of personal space, plunked his head down on Tony's shoulder and huffed in his ear.

"Terrible horse," Tony muttered. "Don't give me that look — I know you're only after my food."

It turned out that privacy wasn't in the cards. No sooner had he convinced George to keep his tongue to himself when Peter appeared out of nowhere.

"Hey, Mr. Stark," he said, and sat down next to Tony.

"You're not here to stick another plant in me, are you?" Tony asked.

"No."

"Good, because I have had it with plants. I'm done with all of them. Plants that walk, plants with eyeballs, plants that eat people, plants that dig under your skin… I am so sick of looking at these trees I could gouge my own eyes out. When we get home, I'm thinking of buying a small forest somewhere for the express purpose of blowing it up."

"Yeah, I don't think you're actually going to do that,"

"Watch me," Tony said. "Anyway, do you need something?"

The kid gave an exaggerated shrug. "Nah, I'm just… taking a break. You know. Stretching my legs."

Tony would have complained about the blatant transparency of this lie, except the kid was good company.

And it didn't end there. The two of them had barely gotten comfortable when someone else dropped by. This time, the new arrival was Jean.

Tony was beginning to smell a conspiracy "What brings you out this way?" he asked.

"To tell you the truth, I'm not certain," she replied. "Natasha came to my office and told me that you needed to see a friendly face. I don't believe I'm supposed to understand why I'm here, but here I am regardless."

Okay, that was just… so… his brain snarled up trying to catalog all the things it was, and in the meantime Jean nudged George away and sat down on Tony's other side.

Fine. _Whatever_. Tony sighed heavily at all these busybodies, then grudgingly allowed himself to be distracted. There wasn't much to talk about besides the war, but they tried to keep it light: Vision was out on reconnaissance, Peter had just finished an inspection of the suspension bridge, Sam was healing quickly, Kel was due back very soon. All things considered, they were doing pretty well.

But then Peter looked over his shoulder. "Uh… you guys, I think something's happening."

He was looking east, toward the road. There was a figure walking into camp. Too big to be Kel. Too big to be human.

Jean came to her feet as if in a trance. Her eyes had gone wide. She started walking. They all did.

Footsteps and voices approached as more people noticed what was happening. Natasha and Steve were inbound, and… oh god, Alisha and Aaron were with them. Barton, somehow the only sensible one among them, had his bow. Jean and Natasha were probably carrying knives. Maybe Steve was, too. No one had a sword or a spear.

They came together at the center of camp and faced down the intruder.

It was Humphrey. Alone. Strolling down the road like he owned the place.

He stopped about twenty feet from their line, and tossed a metal object to the ground. It rolled across the dirt, trailing leather straps, and came to a halt at Jean's feet.

Tony recognized it immediately. It was one of the artificial hands he'd made for Kel. The one with the cutting edge. The one she'd been wearing on her mission.

The Gold-Tips had her.

 


	50. Chapter 50

Jean looked down at Kel's hand, cold as ice, then back up.

"I see," she said. "You have my attention."

"I thought I would," Humphrey said, that smug son of a bitch. He took his damned time sizing up each of them in turn, then said, "You are becoming… costly. I am authorized to extend to you the following offer. Surrender. Give up your weapons. We will proceed to your backup location and take possession of the remaining Terrans. Once that is done, your Brenith will be returned to you, and your entire combat team will be permitted to leave through the final portal."

Tony wasn't dealing with the words just yet. The words were guaranteed to be lies. Instead, he was processing whatever data he could get from his second look at the opposition.

Humphrey was huge, even for a Mino. He was a mass of hulking muscle, over seven feet tall without the horns. The only other Mino Tony had ever seen on his scale had been the camp commandant. If human signifiers of age had any applicability whatsoever, Humphrey could have been his son.

He was smart and well trained. He was stronger than any three humans put together. He wasn't even trying to hide the fact that he had the upper hand and he liked it. And if he eyeballed Peter one more time, Tony was going to rip his horns off.

"Your evidence is interesting, but not conclusive," Jean said, still frigid as an iceberg. "How do I know you actually have her?"

Humphrey snorted. "Should I have brought you the other hand? Still fresh? j'Brenithi enjoy spreading the myth of their own invulnerability. Some of them even believe it themselves. But myth is not reality. We took her three nights ago. I won't pretend that she is undamaged, but for the moment, she is essentially intact. How long she remains that way is up to you."

"Your word, obviously, being above reproach."

"My word is all you have," Humphrey retorted.

He took a step. Barton instantly drew back on the bowstring.

Humphrey paused, eyes still locked on Jean. Without turning her head, Jean made a sharp gesture in Barton's direction. Tony could feel him seething as he lowered the weapon.

Humphrey resumed his saunter forward. "Look around you," he said. "You're exhausted. Your supplies are all but gone, and now you've lost your most formidable weapon. Yes, you damaged us, but it came at too high a cost." He stopped right in front of her, and his head tilted in a manner that could have almost passed for concern. "If you make your last desperate stand at the brink of the cliff, all of you will die, and we will take our slaves back regardless. That can no longer be changed. But _these_ —" he gestured past her "—your soldiers, the ones you led into this war — their lives don't have to be spent in vain. You can still bring them home."

Jean swallowed, and made no reply.

"It was a valiant effort," Humphrey said. "You proved your strength. Now prove your wisdom, and walk away."

Hoarsely, she asked, "Do I have time to consider?"

"Sunset. Bring your people — _all_ of your people, including the machine — across the barrier to the east. Unarmed, of course. You will be taken into custody until we have secured our property."

"There are additional combat personnel at the secondary site."

"You may accompany our forces there and issue the appropriate orders."

He turned his back — he turned his _fucking back_ , that arrogant bastard — and started to walk away. Every one of them except Jean took a reflexive step forward.

Humphrey paused. His head turned slightly. "I would think it goes without saying that if I fail to return, the offer is withdrawn, and the Brenith dies slowly."

"Hold your positions," Jean snapped.

So they did. They stood like statues until Humphrey had disappeared down the road.

Flickers of life began to return. Traded looks. Low murmurs. Gestures of frustration. Aaron and Alisha conversed rapidly in sign, both of them visibly stricken. Only Jean remained fixed in place.

This had to be hitting her harder than any of them. She had every right to freak out and Tony wanted so much to give her space to do it, but…

He'd barely made a move in her direction when she abruptly pivoted on her heel, putting her back to the road and facing the rest of the group.

"It's fair to say that emotions are running high right now," Jean said. Every syllable clicked into place with rigid control. "Humphrey wants to pressure us into rash action. Let's not oblige him. We'll meet at the tables to discuss our options in half an hour."

She swept through the crowd, pausing only to gather up Aaron and Alisha, and made a beeline for her office.

Selfishly, just for a second, Tony was stung at not having been included. But… no, they were the ones who'd known Kel the longest. Jean had her responsibilities, and he had his.

He caught Steve's eye for a second, and there was a moment of understanding between them. Steve would take charge of the rest of the team, but Tony was going to be otherwise occupied.

He turned to Peter. "Hey, kid, I left my dishes back at the stable. Come with me, will you, before George eats them?"

At some point during the Spider-Nurse era, Peter had stopped wearing a mask around the camp. Tony wasn't sure exactly what had happened, though he privately suspected that one night the kid had just forgotten. In any event, his face was visible, and every inch of it was written over with shock.

"I don't understand how they could have caught her," Peter said, falling in beside Tony on autopilot. "She can't be ambushed. She always knows where everyone is — that's her _thing_. How could they have done it?"

Damn good question. "I don't know," Tony admitted. "Sheer force of numbers, probably."

"Do you think… I mean, she's still alive, though, right? She has to be, since they're going to trade her back to us."

The probability that Humphrey had any intention of keeping his word was negligible. Which meant that, realistically—

"Of course she's still alive. They've got her stashed somewhere, that's all."

They were approaching the mini-stable again. George was pacing back and forth at the end of his tether like he was waiting for someone to fill him in. Peter and Tony met up with him and devoted their attention to scratching those hard-to-reach shoulder scales.

After a bit of horse therapy, Peter said, "Jean's not really going to… to give everyone up, is she?"

"Not a chance," Tony said, and this time he had no doubts at all. "We're going to put together a counterstrike, get Kel back, and kick Humphrey's ass right off the cliff."

"Yeah." Peter gave a firm nod. "And I'm going to help. Don't even bother telling me to stay behind this time, because I won't do it. I'm going to help you find her — I don't care what it takes."

Tony eyed him across George's back. "That's how it is, huh?"

"Yeah, that's how it is."

Peter might have stopped wearing the mask, but he'd never taken off his two birthday presents: the bracelet from Jean, and the dagger from Kel. Tony wasn't about to hand him a sword and turn him loose, but he had to admit that the kid didn't deserve to be benched.

"Well. We'll see what Jean says when you give her that speech. But I'm betting there'll be jobs for all of us in this one."

 

* * *

 

Natasha and Clint sat down side by side at a table, and settled in to wait for the rest to arrive.

"What do you think?" Clint asked.

She had thoughts on a variety of topics, but she knew which one in particular he meant. "I think if I got close enough to Kel to take her hand, I'd do a lot worse than just take her hand."

"Yeah."

 

* * *

 

Steve sat down on the empty cot next to Sam's. Sam was in the 'physically sound but still exhausted' phase of recovery (Steve knew it well). He'd been out of bed earlier that morning, but only briefly, and had apparently been asleep ever since.

Steve hated to disturb him. Especially for this. But he had no choice.

"Sam," he said quietly.

It took a few repetitions before Sam's eyes opened.

"Hey, Steve." He took in Steve's expression, and his face fell. "What happened?"

Steve told him.

 

* * *

 

Sam leaned on Steve's shoulder as they crossed the camp to the dining area, and tried to catch himself up on current events. Kel was… Kel had been…

_Shit_.

They needed clear heads. Humphrey would just love it if they let emotion cloud their judgment. But Sam had seen a lot of war. He knew the kinds of things that got done to prisoners.

They needed to get Kel back, and damned quick.

The short walk from the infirmary to the center of camp was still long enough to leave Sam with legs made of rubber. Aaron could work miracles and Sam was absolutely _not_ complaining, but cramming weeks' worth of healing into a couple days came with consequences, and one of them was this crushing exhaustion. Steve stopped them at the closest table, and Sam sank down gratefully onto the bench.

Steve took a seat next him. Nat and Clint were across the aisle. Not surprisingly, no one made small talk.

Without watches, Jean's timeframe of half an hour only meant that the meeting would start once everyone was ready. Tony and Peter showed up a few minutes later, and grabbed their own table further down. The Spider-kid — and Sam was still coping with some shock over just how much of a _kid_ he was — had on an expression that was equal parts devastation and fury. Tony was playing it more internal, but tension was oozing off him.

Not that different from Sam and Steve, really. They were all wound tight enough to snap.

Alisha and Aaron emerged from the admin building a while later. They followed the trend of grabbing their own table and not talking to anyone. Sam ran down his mental checklist: Wanda was still at the beta site, and Vision was probably out on reconnaissance somewhere. That left only Jean.

When she finally appeared, she was carrying one of her maps in a loose roll. Her face was blank, but her shoulders were tight.

The rest of the group had formed a rough quarter-circle. Jean crossed to the center, set down her map, and leaned her hands on the table.

"Some or all of the following is self-evident," she said, "but I feel strongly that our circumstances require clarity and specificity. First: the enemy is offering us this deal because they're afraid of us. We shouldn't have had a chance, and yet we've cut them down to a quarter of their number and all but ground them to a standstill. _We_ did that." She thumped the table with her fist. "And what's more, Humphrey knows that there's a powerful weapon he hasn't even seen yet waiting for him at the beta site. He's afraid of us, and he's _terrified_ of Wanda. That means we have more leverage than he wants us to think we have.

"For that reason, I believe that Kel is still alive. Humphrey has a great deal to gain by selling us on his proposal. If she's dead, it's too easy for us to call his bluff.

"Second: Humphrey has no intention of letting anyone go. The danger of playing along with his plan is that, sooner or later, we will reach the point where he simply kills us all. We need to postpone that point long enough to regain control of the situation.

"Lastly." She steeled herself. "There are certain things… certain ugly things that it is my job to say. Abandoning the people we came here to save is not on the table. Abandoning Kel is."

The pronouncement landed like a fifty-ton anvil. Sam was enough of a pragmatist to know that she had to say it, but at the same time he resented the hell out of her for it. And he wasn't the only one.

"Not for me, it isn't," Steve retorted.

"Steve—"

" _No_ ," he snapped. "I have supported you this far, even when I've disagreed with you, but if you think I'm going to stand by while you _abandon_ —"

"If there comes a point where we have to cut our losses—"

"' _Cut our losses_ '? Are you even hearing yourself? We can't win if we let the enemy turn us into—"

Jean's hand slammed down. " _Don't you dare_ hand me that self-righteous bullshit! Don't you _fucking_ dare! Do you think I don't understand what I just said? Kel is one of my closest friends. She means a hell of a lot more to me than she does to you. But she is a _soldier_. She understood the risks, and she made me _promise_ her that if this exact situation occurred, I would not endanger any more lives by going after her. Now, I am prepared to break that promise on my own behalf, and for anyone who chooses to follow me, _if_ there is a real chance that we can save her. What I will not do is ignore my responsibility to that group of people out there—" her finger stabbed west "—who did _not_ volunteer to put their lives on the line. And if you're going to sit there and tell me I'm wrong, then you're not _nearly_ as good at this job as you think you are."

"Hey, here's a thought," Clint said. "How about we fight one war at a time? That okay with everybody?"

The silence was tense enough to be physically painful.

After a _long_ pause, Jean unfurled her map with a little more force than strictly necessary, and pointed at something that Sam couldn't see. "Location. Three days ago, Kel was supposed to be out here, near the coast just north of the garrison. If they have her, my guess is that they're keeping her in the same general area. The simplest way to keep a Brenith contained is to wall them off. There are a lot of natural caves that could serve as makeshift prison cells."

One by one, they took the hint and gathered at the central table. Steve and Jean were twin pillars of seething resentment.

Sam reviewed the part where they needed to keep their collective heads, set his own emotions to the side, and took a look at the stretch of coast that Jean was pointing to. "That's a lot further than a three-day hike from here," he said.

"Yes," said Jean. "Which — assuming that Humphrey wasn't lying about the timeline — suggests either a communication system or a mode of transportation, or quite possibly both. We should assume that Kel's prison is rigged with traps, including countermeasures that specifically target Vision. I think we also have to assume that if Humphrey suspects a rescue effort from us, he'll be able to transmit a warning more quickly than the distance would otherwise indicate."

"Careful you're not giving him more power than he actually has," Natasha said.

"He would never leave her alive unless he was very certain that he could keep her contained," Jean replied. "He has created a valuable opportunity here, and I believe that he's willing to take some risks in order to capitalize on it — possibly to the extent of keeping her alive, but not to the extent of letting her slip away." She straightened up and folded her arms. "We need options. I want to hear any and all ideas. Nothing is too preliminary or improbable."

"Tony has something," Steve said.

Tony's head came up sharply. "Uh. I do?"

"I've been reading your notes." He sent Tony the ghost of a grin. "Like you said, they were right there on the counter. You can fix me."

That sure as hell got everyone's attention.

"Okay, _no,_ " Tony retorted. "Important clarification: _no_. I can _maybe_ fix tiny pieces of you. One slice at a time. That's all I've got. So unless you're willing to be turned into bologna first, I'm nowhere close to being able to fix you. Okay? I need more time."

Jean asked, "What's the delay?"

"What's the—" Tony threw his hands up. "I am trying to do cellular biology with _toothpicks_! _That's_ the delay! I can't— what have we got, six hours until sunset? I couldn't even _list_ all the problems that quickly, let alone solve them. No. _No_."

"Are we talking a scale of days?" Jean asked. "Weeks?"

Tony sighed heavily. "If this becomes the only thing I do, which I assume it just did? Forty-eight hours at the absolute minimum, and that's just to physically rig up the components, _not_ to work out whether anyone who's actually reckless enough to try it—"

"I'll do it," Steve said.

"—will come out alive," Tony finished sharply. "And I feel like we've had this conversation already. If you expect me to be complicit in _killing_ you—"

"We need every weapon we can get, now more that ever. If there's any chance—"

"The issue is moot if we can't buy time," Jean interjected. "So let's make time our priority. Steve, if Tony reaches a point where this appears feasible, then I won't stop you from trying." She refocused on the map. "I know what the first step has to be, but not how far it gets us. Let's play it out."

They talked for at least an hour. Jean's style was to chase down every possible contingency, no matter how unlikely. By the time she finally dismissed everyone, they had a plan plus a whole bevy of backup plans, and Sam's back was just killing him.

The science crew — Tony, Peter, Alisha — formed up and went into planning mode. Clint, Nat and Steve were on weapons detail, and headed for the armory. Jean rolled up her map and strode off in the direction of her office. That left Aaron to walk Sam back to the infirmary.

He made it basically under his own steam, then basically collapsed on his cot. Aaron lifted up the back of his shirt and rubbed some kind of salve over his stinging skin that felt goddamn _fantastic_. Sam groaned, and worked one of his hands free long enough to make an embarrassingly bad approximation to the ASL for 'thank you'. Aaron fixed his shirt and give him a friendly pat on the shoulder.

Sleep was _so_ tempting… but instead, Sam levered himself onto his side to face Aaron. "How are you doing with all this?" he asked.

Aaron shot him a wry smile. "I'm an empath. I can tell how many of you think Kel is already dead."

_Damn_. "I don't know how anyone else feels about it, but I'm a lot more optimistic than I was before Jean laid out how she thinks this thing is going to play."

He shrugged. "I hope she's right. She's good at predicting what people are going to do. But even if Kel is alive, she's badly hurt. She's my friend, and she's in pain, and I can't help her. That's how I'm doing with all this."

Sam's heart sank. "I'm sorry," he said, knowing just how little it mattered. "We're going to do everything we can to—"

"I know," Aaron said quickly. He smiled again — his professional smile. "Get some rest. You'll need it for tonight."

 

* * *

 

The armory was no longer a single room, but multiple storage spaces spread out across the admin building and the old prison cells. Steve, Clint and Natasha split up and began gathering up everything they were going to need. It took several trips. Jean had a certain dramatic flair that Steve — albeit resentfully at the moment — had to respect.

Her office door was closed when he passed it on the way to pick up his last armload, and he never heard her footsteps behind him.

"Steve," she said, and he nearly dropped a breastplate on his foot.

He turned, salvaging what dignity he could. "Jean."

She was standing in the doorway at parade rest, chin up and face blank. "I blew up at you," she said. "It was inexcusable. I apologize."

And just like that, the lion's share of the anger that had been twisting around in his guts transformed into guilt.

It was so much simpler to just _be angry_. Let that phrase — _cut our losses_ — burn a hole in him until the next time he had a chance to punch something. (As if he didn't understand perfectly well why she'd used words to distance herself.) The part where they settled down and tried to understand each other… that was the hard part.

Steve crouched to set down the armor he'd been holding, and to buy a couple seconds. "You don't have to… That isn't necessary." Awkwardly, he gestured toward the adjacent room. "Should we…?"

They went next door to her office, and took up positions against opposite walls.

"I know you're not making your decisions lightly, or callously," Steve said. "Of course she's your friend and you want to help her. It was wrong of me to imply otherwise. I'm sorry."

"I'm the one who stated that I was prepared to abandon her," Jean replied. "You can hardly be blamed for reacting to that." She leaned back against the wall. "I'm angry as well. As we saw. Furious." Her voice grew hoarse, like it had when she'd been talking to Humphrey. "But I'm not wrong."

_Yes, you are. You don't_ ever _leave a teammate behind. You don't just—_

"I lost a friend in combat," Steve said instead. "And afterward, the memory of that moment played behind my eyelids day and night for… honestly, I'm not sure it ever stopped. Picturing every possible way I could have made it turn out differently, and didn't. If you give that order, I'm not sure you can imagine what you'd have to live with."

"It's easier to give your own life than a friend's," she said. "Yes. If it were simply a matter of wishing myself into Kel's place, I would have done it instantly. But she made a choice, and there are a hundred twenty people out there who didn't. If I put her life over theirs… that, I think, would be even harder to live with."

"Don't put anyone's life above the others. Save them all."

"If I can."

"Find a way. Whatever it takes. There's always—"

"No, there _isn't_ always!" She drew a sharp breath, exhaled more slowly. "Steve, it isn't difficult to guess that this is touching on Bucky Barnes in some manner. I would never presume to understand that experience or judge your response. But at the same time, I can't allow it to dictate my decisions."

_You don't just let someone fall_. Steve felt his mouth twist up into a grimace under the pain of old scars. "So you're saying my judgment is askew?"

"I don't know," she said quietly. "I only know that my way of dealing with difficult situations is to face down the possibilities, however unpleasant. Pretending that the worse-case scenario can't happen won't prevent it from happening. And — if it matters, which perhaps it doesn't — I've also lost someone close to me under difficult circumstances. I know that I will mourn; I also know that I will recover." She straightened up again, and went back to her formal posture. "In any event, I'm sorry I yelled at you. I was out of line."

"Apology accepted," he said. It was hard to meet her eyes, like she'd just shown him up in some way he couldn't quite explain. "I'm sorry I came down on you the way I did. You didn't deserve it."

She tilted her head. "Apology accepted. And Steve? I realize this isn't my business, but I'm asking you, _please_ pay attention if Tony tells you that his process isn't ready. I don't need Captain America — I need you."

Ever since he'd deciphered enough of Tony's notes to read the phrase 'zero infiltration', it was… it was like his heart wanted to fly right up out of his mouth. He had to try. He had to _know_.

And the strange, still somewhat surprising truth was that he would survive if it failed. (Well — assuming he survived the failure, but that part was up to Tony.) The only thing he couldn't bear was not to try.

Steve realized he'd left Jean hanging, and quickly said, "Don't worry. This isn't about self-destruction, I promise. Kel is important to me, too. I need to know that I did everything I could."

He saw the crack in the facade, just for a second, before Jean locked it down again. "Thank you," she said. "That means a lot."

 

* * *

 

When the emergency meeting of the Compress Months Of R&D Into Forty-Eight Hours And To Hell With Research Ethics committee broke up, it was late afternoon, shading into evening. They were going to have to leave soon if they planned to make their deadline.

When Tony reached the town square, he found that Vision had returned, and an impressive array of weaponry had been assembled. Most everyone else had also found their way back to the picnic tables, with one notable exception.

Tony sent Peter off to make himself useful in the kitchen, then took a page from Kel's book and walked into Jean's office without knocking.

"Hey."

Jean straightened in her chair and hastily wiped her eyes. "Hi, Tony. What do you need?"

"You don't always have to lead with what other people need, you know." He shut the door behind him and perched on her desk. "Look, I hope you know by now that if you tell me to go, I'm gone. But you've got a serious piece of work coming up tonight, and I just thought, if you needed a couple minutes where you don't have to be Boss-Lady…"

She shot him such a glare as she stood up that he was fully convinced he was about to be tossed out on his ass. And she wasn't gentle when she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and buried her face in his neck.

They stayed like that for a spell.

Eventually, Jean straightened up again and squeezed his shoulders. "I owe you an apology. I know you and Kel are close. After we got the news, I should have checked—"

"Hey, no," Tony said quickly. "You had to take care of Alisha and Aaron. I got that."

"How is Peter doing?"

"He's handling it okay. Raring to go."

She nodded. "And how are you doing?"

One advantage Tony had over her was that this wasn't the first time someone he cared about had been held hostage. The rage and fear and helplessness gouged out familiar wounds.

"Probably about like you are," he said. "Two seconds from burning the planet down." He reached up, boldly, and nudged a stray lock of hair off her forehead. "You got this. Go remind Humphrey who's in charge of this war."

 

* * *

 

They crossed the perimeter at sunset. All of them, as requested. But they were pretty much the opposite of unarmed.

It was time to make a statement. That meant the _good_ armor, and the cannons.

Natasha had designed their configuration carefully. They formed a wedge, three per side, with Jean at the point and Aaron, Peter and Alisha in the middle. Each side of the wedge carried a portable cannon. (Never mind that firing it would knock them all off their feet. When it came to cannons, it was the thought that counted.)

They marched in formation down the eastern road to the barrier, where Humphrey and two more Gold-Tips — likewise fully armored, and accompanied by six-legged pack animals of a species Natasha had never seen before — were waiting for them.

Humphrey gave them a once-over. His gaze lingered, like it had before, on the three noncombatants. Peter, maskless and looking terribly young, flinched at the scrutiny and averted his eyes.

"It seems there was a problem with the translator," Humphrey said. "Or is it simply that you care nothing for your companion's life?"

"No, you were very clear," Jean replied. "You opened negotiations. Now I have a counter-offer. There are no bargains to be made until I see for myself that Kel is alive. You will take me there, show her to me, and bring me back."

"You don't seem to appreciate your position," Humphrey retorted. "You have two choices: surrender and save the lives of your team, or die for your ego. This is your last chance."

Jean strode forward. Exactly the right pace — confident, not rushed, every step rooting itself in the ground. She put herself nose to nose with him and spat, " _You're bluffing_. You don't have Kel. She escaped. Your only hope is to manipulate me into surrendering before she shows up and wipes you out."

This was it. The moment where they found out whether Jean's read on the situation was right or wrong.

Natasha trusted her instincts. Mjentur weren't human and maybe it was dangerous to apply human standards, but the slow exhale and the flick of the eyes all screamed that she had him.

Humphrey stepped aside, around her. Jean held her ground.

"It is in all of our interests to resolve this situation without further bloodshed," he said. "As a gesture of good faith, I will supply your proof. But not to you." He pointed. "That one. The small one with dark skin."

_Oh, dammit_.

Aaron looked around, uncertain. Natasha quickly signed an explanation.

"Maybe you weren't listening," Jean bit out, turning to face him. "I said _I_ need—"

"You bargain for your lives," Humphrey snapped. "I bargain for my convenience. If you require proof of life, you will receive it in a manner of my choosing."

Aaron ducked out of the wedge. "It's okay," he said, stepping up alongside Jean. "It's okay. I'll go."

They'd been trying to steer Humphrey toward Spider-Man — unmasking him, putting him right at the center of the wedge, giving him timid body language. But Humphrey hadn't taken the bait. _Don't do the thing the enemy wants you to do, but don't do the thing they obviously_ don't _want you to do, either._ Smart.

Two minutes in, and already they'd switched from the plan to a backup plan. Not the greatest start. Not the worst, either.

"How long?" Jean asked tightly.

"To go and return, three days."

"Then he'll need supplies. Food and water, a bedroll."

Humphrey gave a huff of annoyance. "Terrans and their frailties. Yes, go. Get what you need and return."

Jean conveyed this with quick signs. Aaron nodded and set off at a jog back to camp.

"In the meantime—"

"And one more condition," Humphrey said. "The machine stays with us."

Jean stiffened. "Excuse me?"

"Consider it a gesture of good faith on your part."

"Exactly how many hostages do you expect me to give you?"

"I already have you _all_ ," he snarled. "The correct question is, how many do I plan to give back? Your demand comes at a cost of three extra days. If you want them, you will pay for them."

One of Humphrey's soldiers slung a thick metal chain over his shoulder and hauled something forward. It was a rectangular metal box, about the size and shape of a coffin.

"The material is not vibranium," Humphrey said. "However, each wall consists of two layers with a coating of _rrzhtik-che_ between them. If it tries to escape, it will be destroyed. Of course, you'll get it back once you have held up your side of the bargain."

Jean had gone rigid with rage. "Under no circumstances will I order—"

"You won't have to," Vision said. "I will comply."

He stepped forward. His gait just a little bit off due to the simple metal peg leg he was sporting (though walking was something of an affectation for him anyway). The Gold-Tip opened the lid of the coffin, and he lay down inside.

The rest of the team watched silently while they sealed him in.

Jean struggled to recenter herself. "In the meantime," she said again, "until Aaron returns, you will stay outside the perimeter, and you will keep your forces back. If I see an army gathering — if I see the slightest hint of movement toward the bridge — I will show you just how _costly_ the rest of us can be."

The words rang hollow compared with what they'd just given up, and they all knew it. Humphrey didn't even bother to reply.

They had to wait for Aaron to return with the pack that had been intended for Peter. Natasha discreetly took Alisha by the elbow when she started to shake. Everyone else remained stock still.

Aaron appeared, and was hauled up onto the back of one of the horses. Without another word, the Gold-Tips departed, dragging the coffin behind them.

Still the group waited, motionless, until the Gold-Tips had receded from view. The spell was only broken when Alisha folded up into a heap.

Peter and Tony immediately gathered around her, while the rest gave her some space.

Jean doubled over as much as her armor allowed, and leaned her hands in her knees. "Nicely done, everyone," she said breathlessly. "Next time, let's go back to fighting them."

"Good job," Natasha told her. "He bought every line."

Vision stepped out of the shadows. "I assume the ruse was successful?"

"No one's dead yet, anyway," Clint said. He took a second look at Alisha. "At least, I don't think so."

"Go," Jean said. "Go, go, go, and for pity's sake don't be seen."

Vision lifted off and disappeared up into the trees.

Jean straightened up, and moved to the next piece of the plan. "Peter—"

"Yeah, I just need to grab my stuff, then I'll go after them."

"Remember," she said, "unless Aaron is in danger, they cannot know that you are following. They can't have the slightest suspicion. Kel said that you have good instincts. Make sure you use them."

Peter gave her a solemn nod. "I know. Don't worry. I've got this."

"I know you do."

Once he was gone, Jean took his place next to Alisha. "Li? How are you doing?"

"Awesome," she said. "Except for the part where my brain is on fire. Could everyone breathe a little quieter, please?"

"You were _fantastic_ ," Jean said quietly. "We're going to take you back to camp and let you sleep, okay?"

Alisha grumbled something indistinct, and let Tony help her to her feet.

Jean stood as well. "Three days," she said to the rest of them. "Let's make them count."

 

* * *

 

Alisha's telepathic hangover knocked her out cold for twelve hours straight. Unfortunately, Tony couldn't wait for her. There was way too much to do if he was actually going to solve the Steve problem in the next two days.

They had all the basic components. The idea, at its core, wasn't that complicated. The problem was one of scale.

They'd been cultivating the multicolored filaments ever since the salvage team had brought back that plant. It grew quickly in the camp greenhouse, and had taken over multiple plots. So Tony had quite a lot of homegrown orange energy conduction strands, and he'd pulled even more out of the innards of the captured tanks.

Steve still had the serum. That was the thing. Every now and then — usually if Steve had been injured in some other way — it would notice the invading filaments and go wild trying to fix everything. But the filaments sucked energy and raw materials from the same enhanced sources, and they fought back. For Steve, who was the battleground, the result was exhaustion. Push it too fast, and his cells would burn themselves out under the strain.

The orange strands, in principle, were going to take care of that problem. One of them could feed enough energy into a sample of muscle tissue to sustain it long enough for the serum to break down the filaments. Since Steve had rejected his bologna idea, Tony needed a large enough power transfer system to tap all the major muscle groups and the long bones simultaneously.

He also needed a power source. They had several of the energy cores that powered the cannons, but blasting Steve with a cannon was not the desired effect. So — attenuators. Mostly cobbled together from other pieces of the cannon's power system.

Then came the off-switch. The filaments did respond to the same chemical signal that could clear out an eyeball-vine infestation (okay, not _exactly_ the same, but Tony wanted to maintain his reputation for modesty and therefore was not going to dwell on the acts of genius that the modification had entailed). There was no practical way to saturate all of Steve's tissues with the compound simultaneously. The alternative that Tony was banking on was that the seeds that had spawned the filament network in the first place were still inside Steve. He was going to inject the off-signal into the seeds directly, and hope that it would spread through the network.

Aaron was supposed to be there to help him with that part.

He didn't know. He hated not knowing, but there it was. Without computer simulations, without test runs, without being a hundred percent sure how chemistry worked in this damned place… it might work, it might do nothing, it might be fatal.

He'd done as much as he could do.

It turned out, when Tony sort of came back to himself, that he'd explained all of this at top speed and volume to Jean, who was looking a little glazed.

"Okay," she said. "You're going to get some sleep now."

" _That_ was your takeaway?"

"I took several things away, but that one was by far the most pressing, yes."

Tony couldn't figure out how she'd crossed the room without him noticing, but suddenly she was attached to his arm and tugging him toward the door.

He flailed his free hand at the mess on the counter. "No, it isn't finished, I still have to—"

"Tony."

"I can run a few more tests on the power supply, the third quadrant's been glitchy, and—"

"Tony."

"Do you understand that I have _no idea_ what's going to happen?"

"Do you understand that I will pick you up and carry you?"

Oh god, she would actually do it. Tony slumped in defeat and let himself be shepherded out of the infirmary into the waiting room, where there was a cot to fall down on. He face-planted and groaned into the pillow.

"How much time?" he asked.

"It is very, very late the night before our deadline," Jean told him. "I'd guess we have something like fifteen hours."

"Wasn't Li just here?"

"Yes. She's the one who came and asked me to get you to stop."

_Traitor_. "Okay. I'll lie here for a few minutes until you go away, and then I'm gonna finish my work."

Tony heard a sigh from somewhere above him. The thought occurred that his plan would have been more effective if he hadn't said it out loud.

The cot was small. Jean was not. Tony groaned again as she insinuated herself under, over and around him.

"This is not at all what I meant," he grumbled.

"Go to sleep."

He had every intention of offering a rebuttal, since her position was fundamentally untenable and frankly not very well argued. He was absolutely… any minute now…

…Then he was opening his eyes to daylight.

Somehow he and Jean hadn't kicked each other out of bed. They were tangled up in the blankets and each other in a way that wasn't at all comfortable. The fact that they'd managed to sleep spoke to how exhausted they'd both been.

Jean was still asleep, in fact. It was the first time in weeks that Tony had seen her face without worry lines.

He did feel better. Not that he planned to admit it to her face or anything, but… yeah, okay. The sleep helped. So did the company. He hoped that Jean had gotten something from it, too.

Her eyes fluttered open. "Hey."

"Hey."

"Breakfast?"

"Sure."

 

* * *

 

Steve woke up to a world that didn't quite feel real. Which, considering the glittery winged lizard-horses, the Minotaur soldiers, the giant grey scorpions, and the interdimensional portal, was an observation that was eight months overdue. But there it was. He felt like if he breathed too quickly, the whole thing would evaporate.

He drifted out to the picnic tables and sat down opposite Alisha.

"Should I skip breakfast?" he asked.

Alisha blinked at him owlishly for long enough that Steve started to wonder if the whole plan hadn't been a desperate dream.

" _Oh_ ," she said abruptly. "God. Um… yes? Digestion probably won't help with anything, so let's go with yes."

He tried to give her a reassuring smile. "How are you doing?"

Wide-eyed, she squeaked, "Really confident!"

Steve chuckled. "I meant in general."

"Oh." She rubbed her forehead. "Scared out of my wits? Regretting quite a lot of my recent life choices? But also, you know… really confident."

No one made a fuss about it, but everyone knew. One by one, Sam, Natasha and Clint each dropped by and made casual conversation, departing with a pat on the shoulder or a clap on the back.

Tony and Jean were the last ones to put in an appearance. They emerged from the infirmary together, both obviously sleep-tousled. (Steve wasn't sure exactly what the situation was there, not that it was any of his business.) Tony caught his eye, and gave a nod.

They were doing this.

Perhaps it wasn't shocking that he and Tony hadn't actually discussed how it was all supposed to work. Alisha took the initiative and crossed to Tony's table for a few quick words, then returned to report.

"Tony says we need maybe an hour to finish setting everything up," she said. "After that… whenever you're ready."

Steve wasn't sure how the hour drifted by. He found himself back in his barracks at one point, remembering a different set of starkly utilitarian surroundings, the last time he'd been on the brink of a transformation. Had he been more nervous that time? He couldn't tell.

There was no way to measure time. An hour could be as long or as short as they liked. Steve waited until he couldn't wait any longer. Then he went to find Tony.

Jean was standing in front of the treatment room door. When Steve approached, she extended her hand. He reached out as well, and they shook warmly.

"Good luck," she said.

"Thank you."

Then he was inside.

The room had changed. Every counter was covered with an elaborate tangle of strands and vines and stalks, most of them streaked with varying shades of orange, some of them glowing. The whole thing looked like it had been hastily patched together out of scraps, which after all was exactly what had happened. Tony and Alisha were hovering over different patches of the tangle, sometimes poking the glowing bits with instruments that Steve didn't recognize.

"At the risk of straining rule six," Steve said, "this is oddly familiar."

Tony looked up quickly, and Steve could see him mentally running down the rules list until it clicked.

"I am going to do _such_ a better job than my old man did," he said. "I need… sorry, I need the clothes off. Shirt and trousers."

Steve stripped off his shirt and draped it over a nearby stool. "The last time I did this, they let me keep my pants on," he said.

"Seriously?"

"Well, there were ladies present."

Tony rolled his eyes.

Steve undressed, and Alisha directed him to lie down on the table. Tony stopped fiddling with his creation long enough to fill a syringe.

"This won't be pleasant," he said, "so I'm going to put you under. Don't worry, Aaron confirmed the dosage."

"No, hold off on that."

"Steve…"

"I want to see how it works. Please?"

Tony glowered, but he set the needle down on a tray. "Five seconds in and you're already causing problems. Why am I even surprised?"

Alisha came alongside Steve with a jar of something that smelled faintly sweet. She painted a patch of his deltoid with the fluid, then Tony unravelled a slender cord that ended in a fan of orange strands, and touched it to the patch.

The strands immediately sank into Steve's skin and burrowed into the muscle. It didn't hurt, exactly, but it was a peculiar biting sort of pressure that, as promised, wasn't pleasant.

"How's it going?" Tony asked.

"A little weird, but not too bad."

"We're got a lot more of those coming. Let me know when you've satisfied your curiosity."

The two of them worked their way down his body, tapping into muscle after muscle. The pressure and the bite built up until they were unambiguously painful. Steve lay quiet and still until the last collection of strands had dug into his calf.

"Okay," Tony announced, and pointed to a collection of thicker cables that ended not in fans but single points. "These last ones are going into bones, and I'm not doing that to you while you're awake. Then these three here are designed to target the seeds at the heart of the filament network. They're going to transmit the off-signal, while the leads feed enough energy to your cells for the serum to get the upper hand." He ducked beneath some cables, and popped back up again at Steve's side. "So maybe this isn't the best moment to mention this, but I can't make promises here. I need you to understand that."

Steve carefully bent his elbow, and Tony clasped his hand.

"I know," he said. "Whatever happens, you did everything possible. No one could have done more." He squeezed Tony's hand. "I'm ready."

Tony squeezed back, then set his hand down. "Then I'll see you in a few."

Steve gazed up at the ceiling. The needle pinched the crook of his elbow. Then cool numbness began to spread.

He closed his eyes.

 


End file.
